One's Quest, Another's Journey
by Tara B. Dobbs
Summary: Cora is going to have the adventure of her life, when she travels with Piccolo around the world of the mortal Earth.
1. Ones Quest, Another's Journey

"One's Quest,  
  
Another's Journey"  
  
1 Part 1  
  
  
  
In her mind, Cora was lost, kept up in one place too long. So long in fact, she could not remember the last time she ever went out on a quest for her own good and well-being.  
  
Born in up state New York, she was an only child, with her mother. Her father had left them after Cora was born and in her mind, even at an early age, Cora figured out on her own why her father left them so quickly. Her mother never really cared to tell her daughter the truth or even a lie about it all. When Cora was eighteen years of age, her mother and grandfather had both died in a car crash on their way back home from the grocery store. From that, she had inherited her mother's money and her grandfather's house. Both of them were not all that well to do in money, but it was enough to surprise even the simplest of people.  
  
She was now twenty-one years of age and lived by herself in the house she inherited by her grandfather. The house wasn't that big to her, but big enough where she couldn't clean it all by herself when she needed to. She had no one to love, or even wanted to, because she was too busy figuring herself out. She felt lost and trapped, she didn't know where to go or how to go anywhere, since she lost her mother and grandfather, the only two that kept her alive it seemed.  
  
She got up from the couch in the main living room, and walked slowly, longingly to the great window that over looked the valley on the property. The midnight moon shinned brightly as its fullness moved to its peak of beauty. She smiled softly at the moon as she walked over to her stereo system to play some music. Choosing the music she loved most, she pushed play. As the music began, she began to dance like an Arabian Princess.  
  
Her hair was fairly long and wavy dark brown, her eyes blue-green, but mostly green at times. She was fairly tall too, almost six feet tall. Her body was well curved that would make Mother Earth proud, her arms and legs well built with strength, but not so much as to stop the form of her natural beauty. She wore an Arabian Princess' outfit as she danced, the many shades of green fabric flowing all around her as she danced, the music seeming to make her float in the air. She danced so beautifully, as if the stars and the moon were her audience for that night of mystic bliss. Unbeknownst to herself on another form of Earth called Chikyuu, another restless soul needed to get out too.  
  
Piccolo was looking out atop the Lookout with Dende by his side. They both watched almost boringly, like two lazy cats on a fence post.  
  
"It's too quiet now." Piccolo growled.  
  
"I know. Believe it or not, I'm actually getting bored up here." Dende added. "It's like you have more fun than I do."  
  
Piccolo couldn't but help looking at his fellow Namek in an amazed look on his face. Dende, the one that has the high power of guarding Chikyuu and he has just about everything he ever could want up here on the Lookout?  
  
"Yes, I'm serious, Piccolo, I'm actually bored up here, aren't you? Aren't you bored being down there some times? The only thing you do most of the time is meditate."  
  
Piccolo looked out in front of him, seeing the clouds go by, as he pondered this thought that was pretty much true.  
  
"Dende, I believe you are right. It is boring up here and down there," he said pointing to the ground below. "But how can we both get rid of this boredom?"  
  
Dende look down at Chikyuu, thinking for a time and then with a sharp look back at Piccolo he smiled.  
  
"I have an idea. How about we use the Dragon Balls to send you to Earth?"  
  
Piccolo twitched his eye a bit. "Why would I want to go to that planet?"  
  
"Well, just to cure the boredom and just to find something new out there. And well, I can't very well leave my Lookout. If I wanted to leave I could only go down to Chikyuu for a while. You'll have to go to Earth for me, for the both of us. Look at it as a journey to learn new things."  
  
Piccolo thought for a moment then looked at Dende again.  
  
"Why not, I haven't had a vacation ever." He said with curiosity in his eyes.  
  
Dende nodded and telepathically called for Gohan to find the Dragon Balls again and bring them to him.  
  
A few days passed and Gohan came back finally with all seven Dragon Balls.  
  
"Hi, Gohan, glad you made it back." Dende said, as Gohan put the balls on the ground near Dende.  
  
"Don't mind me by asking, but I don't think we really need anything by the Eternal Dragon. How many wishes can be made anyway?" Gohan asked.  
  
"I think only one this time and I need that wish for Piccolo to use." He replied. "He and I are so bored up here I had a great idea to let Piccolo explore Earth, the other Earth that has been fabled to be real."  
  
"Wow! An adventure I would love to go on, but I can't, I have to take care of Pan now." Gohan said enthusiastically. "But when you get back Piccolo, I want to hear everything about your trip."  
  
"So do I," Dende added. "Gohan, I'd like you to be witness to this, so you can explain to everyone else for me."  
  
"Sure."  
  
With the seven Dragon Balls on the ground before Dende's feet, he began to call upon the Great Eternal Dragon. Soon after saying the words, all the balls began to glow brightly and as they glowed one single very long beam of golden light shot out from the center of the clutch of balls. As soon as the light formed, the Great Dragon took full form. His body long and slender, but strong looking, the color of him was all shades of green shinning brightly. Two golden horns atop his head, his claws sharp and golden tipped. His eyes bright red and shinning like the sun.  
  
"Who has awakened me from my sleep?" the Dragon called out, his loud; deep voice rumbling like thunder.  
  
"I have, Great Dragon, I Dende, guardian of Chikyuu." Dende replied.  
  
"Very well, you have only one wish to make. Make it now." The Dragon called out.  
  
Piccolo stood next to Dende, eagerly waiting for the wish to be granted.  
  
"I wish for Piccolo to go to the mortal world called Earth. To have a journey of his own to learn from and to just have an adventure," he said, his arms up in the air.  
  
"Very well," the Dragon replied, as his eyes glowed a brighter shade of red. "Your wish has been granted." With that the Eternal Dragon retuned back into the Dragon Balls and all the balls went their separate directions around Chikyuu once again, to regenerate for a full year.  
  
"Well, have fun for us all, Piccolo." Gohan said, Dende nodding in reply.  
  
"I will, and I'd better be able to get back."  
  
"You will, I promise." Dende said, just as Piccolo vanished to begin his journey and adventure to the mortal planet called Earth.  
  
Back on Earth,  
  
It was a fairly quiet night of just basking in the night's darkness, as she sat near the fireplace, sipping some green tea. The old-fashioned English grandfather red oak clock shimmed the morning hour of one. She slowly looked up into the fireplace, its golden flames dancing wildly as the heat soothed her. Staring deeply into the flames, Cora could see a figure of a white-cloaked man walking in the countryside of Japan. She backed away in fear of this image, she did not see his face, but knew something was strangely familiar about him to her. She whipped off the sweat from her brow and crawled to the bookcase that held all her information book collection of anime. She fingered the hardbound book spins until she found what she was looking for. With one finger she pulled out "The Ultimate Dragonball World Collection Guide" book. She flipped to the colored photo section in the book about Piccolo and stared at one of the photos for a moment. She looked back at the fireplace, the hazy image of the white- cloaked man still there, walking.  
  
"Nay, it can't be him. He's only a story, or at least part of the story of this great anime." Cora said out loud as she looked at all the Piccolo photos. Holding the book open she stood up and walked over to her hand made astrology chart and papers on her oak desk. She flipped through all the free flowing papers until she found Piccolo's chart.  
  
She had studied all the anime characters from her books and with the help of the creators themselves to finish her study and research. It was a good thing that she found out this character's astrology charts so soon, without it, she would not have found something so interesting by now. She stared at Piccolo's chart and just about fainted. By her study of him, she could see it was all making since. By the chart Piccolo was born, by mortal Earth, as a Sagittarius, he had seemed to be lucky, very wise, spiritual, he traveled a lot, and he always had seemed to be in calculated risks in his life. A loner, which says for his traveling and being very independent and he seemed he always wanted to expand his views on himself. His colors for him, made so much since, purple, rust, and hunter green. Green for his skin of course, purple for the part of his turban, gi outfit, and the blood that flowed within him; and rust, for where he lived of his surroundings. She did not know what day he may have been born on this Earth, but she knew enough to surprise herself greatly.  
  
She dropped Piccolo's chart on the floor and the book after. She just stood there in shock and innocent amazement of what she had found. She walked to the great living room window, standing there watching the stars twinkle. She had the best view around in up state New York, hardly any other houses around and she was in perfect bliss of nature's beauty all around her.  
  
It was August, the hottest time of the year it seemed her, but it's nights were cold, it was also the time for the shooting stars. As she watched, seven stars fell together in the formed shape of the Dragon Balls, as if they were laid out on the ground before Dende or Kami's feet for awakening the Eternal Dragon. Those seven stars fell slowly as she watched on; she could only have her mouth gapping open in amazement.  
  
'Is it coming true,' she thought to herself. 'Is my prediction coming true about Piccolo coming to Earth?' Soon after, the seven stars faded back into the darkness of space.  
  
In the countryside of Japan,  
  
Piccolo looked up at the sun, shading his eyes a bit. He had already seen the shooting stars that night and knew someone was looking at them right now on the other side of the planet. He was up in the mountains of Japan where hopefully no one would find him for a while.  
  
'I have to find better clothing than what I've got. I don't want anyone to hunt me down.' He thought to himself, as he walked down the mountain. Looking over the edge of the cliff, he could see a simple cottage style house, children playing outside around it. He fixed his cap around his face and hid his hands from view as he continued to walk down the mountain.  
  
"Momma, look up there!" a young boy cried out pointing in the direction of the mountains. The boy's mother ran outside of the house and looked in the direction where her son pointed.  
  
"What is it, Ki-su?" his mother said, as she looked up at the mountains.  
  
"A man is walking down the mountain," he said still pointing.  
  
She squinted her eyes to see and there sure enough there was that tall man walking the mountain.  
  
'Maybe they can help me, I hope.' Piccolo said as he walked out of the forest edge of the meadow. Once he got close enough to the house, the mother came out to greet him.  
  
Bowing to him, "Welcome to my home, sir," she said as Piccolo bowed in return. "May we help you?"  
  
He cleared his throat. "I am in need of some new cloths for my travels ahead. Do you." his question was stopped as the mother answered for him.  
  
"Yes, we do, we have plenty of fabrics. I can make you some right now, if you'd like?" she said kindly, smiling at him. She looked curiously at his attire, only being able to see his dark black eyes. "Come in, come in and make yourself comfortable," she said guiding him in the way of the house.  
  
As he entered into the cottage, he saw two young boys seated on a couch looking at him. The oldest one looked to be eighteen years of age, almost looking like Gohan back on Chikyuu. The really young one looked to be five years of age and he looked a lot like Goten. He nodded at the boys for a bit of a thank you. They both stared at him, with no reaction.  
  
"Sit, sit. I will make some tea for you." She said.  
  
"No thank you, regular water will be just fine for me," he said pulling out a water canteen, making sure not to show his hands to them. The woman nodded and filled up his canteen with the water from the well that was in the house. She turned around and saw that her boys were still staring.  
  
"What have I told you boys?" she said with a stern voice just like ChiChi's.  
  
The boys perked up suddenly and turned their eyes away.  
  
"The little one there is named Ki-su and my oldest is Kentaro," she said handing the canteen to Piccolo. "My boys and I have lived here for many years. Their father Geson was killed in a land slid many years ago."  
  
"I'm sorry," he replied.  
  
"Thank you. The boys and I were very close to Geson," she said sipping some fresh green tea. "And my name is Tasu. What is your name, sir?"  
  
"My name is Piccolo. I came here just to travel the world on my own." He replied.  
  
"Interesting name, Mr. Piccolo."  
  
"Please, just call me Piccolo," he corrected, she nodding in response.  
  
"Oh goodness me, I almost forgot about making you your clothing. I need to have your measurements," she said, getting out a measuring tape.  
  
"All I really need is the fabric, a large amount of it and I'll make what I need on my own."  
  
"Okay then," she said motioning for him to follow her into the house cellar. Her two young boys following close behind Piccolo, just watching him. Deep inside it was dark, until she turned on the light. The room was filled with many kinds of fabrics in all kinds of colors. "Geson used to work in the market when he was younger. His boss, which he was a very good man, gave him these fabrics that no one wanted and after working for him for so long, he gave him some good fabrics after a while. You may choose as much as you may need."  
  
Piccolo fingered the fabrics, his hand hidden from view.  
  
"Do you have any fabric for winter and summer weathers?" he asked.  
  
"Oh yes," she said, turning to gather some dark; heavy fabric. "I think this should do you well." She put the bolt of fabric on the cutting table and wound out some of it in long yards. "How much?" Piccolo picked up the seizers and started to cut the fabric on the table. Tasu stood back and let him work.  
  
After a while of choosing, cutting and folding the fabrics he wanted, he carried them to the living room and folded them neatly all together in a pack.  
  
"Don't mind me by asking, but why are you covered up so much?" Kentaro asked nervously.  
  
"I just like it this way." He said, slightly glaring at the boy to hush his words. "You're oldest is polite, and quick to ask."  
  
"Yes, he sure is," Tasu said glaring at her son. He backed away a bit. "If you are going to make your clothing later, you will need some needles and thread," she said handing him two spools of dark thread and a pack of needles.  
  
"Arigato," he bowing a bit.  
  
"Your welcome, Piccolo."  
  
"I should be on my way. Thank you so very much for your hospitality and kindness. I shall visit you again someday," he said carrying the fabric and everything else he had with him. He walked out of the house and waved goodbye as an afternoon mist rose over the mountains, the mist making him disappear into it.  
  
As soon as he was deep enough in the mountains, he removed his cloak to reveal his face and hands again.  
  
'I have to make a mask or something for myself. I have no idea how these people will take it of what I look like,' He thought to himself.  
  
Walking most of the day, he finally came across a cave in the mountain. The cave was dry and spacey, enough for him to move around it, but not too big as to make it so cold in the cave. He gathered some dead bamboo stocks and started to make a fire near the entrance to the cave. He stepped outside the cave and began to put the fabrics out on branches. He had four kinds of fabric, black leather, dark green cotton, a dark blue silky kind for hot weather, and a black very heavy kind of thick cotton. It didn't take him long that day and night, by firelight, to finish making a hooded cloak out of the heavy cotton black fabric, with long sleeves, and underneath that, he put his weighted shoulder pads sawn in it. A new turban out of the regular dark green cotton, and a fairly see through vale kind of mask to put underneath his new hooded cloak and some black leather gloves for his hands. He did not change his gi outfit one bit. He finally put his new cloak on, it fitting perfectly, the gloves fitting perfect too and the turban.  
  
'There, now no one will find out what I look like.' He said to himself as he wrapped himself up in the cloak and sat on the ground near the fire, to meditate the night away.  
  
The next day back at Cora's house, she awoke fairly early to get fixed up. She felt anew inside herself, it being way too long since the last time she went on an adventure by herself.  
  
The last time was too long and then again too short to keep going. A year or so after her mother and grandfather's crash, she want to Africa to go on a safari. There she found her power of predicting the future and magic inside herself of the old ways of fae. She had stayed with an old African shaman that taught her of the old ways of the land and how to survive out there. She learned everything from hunting live game with a spear, to where to find water and what and what not to eat of small things.  
  
After she got back from that adventure, she then found herself wrapped up into the world of Japanese anime. She collected anything and everything that had information just about the characters and the anime and mangas themselves. Not like other fans that would collect the toys, cards, posters, etc.she only collected information for her own amusement, and if she had known once of what lay in front of her right at this very moment of a new quest, she would have been scared if she didn't know anything of the truth. For that, she did, and it had made her feel proud to know what she knew.  
  
"I have to find out if it really is him," she said out loud as she began to pack up her backpacks and everything else that she needed for this quest that would be vital to her later on. "Even if we never meet out there on this Earth, at least I would have already known that you were there and from that I have gone out on another quest for my well-being again." She said smiling, a warm light within her heart sang out, she felt so good and she just couldn't wait to start traveling.  
  
Eager as a little beaver to build a new dam, she called up her travel agent and ordered a first class ticket to Africa for starts then she would go from there. She then called a cab and he drove her to the airport.  
  
She got to the airport so quick it seemed that time just flew by at light speed. She stepped out of the cab and grabbed all her stuff. Her camping pack, regular backpack, two canteens, camera, and everything else she had with her she grabbed. She put mostly everything on the ground near the cab and asked for an airport guard to take a picture for her. She thanked the man and then went on her way.  
  
'Wow!' she thought. 'This is amazing! I'm about to start a new quest, a quest that no one will figure out and I will not tell a soul about this, it will be me and Piccolo's little secret. Even if I meet up with him.' She chuckled, excitement running through her body. She ran as fast as she could to the gate and made it just as the plane began to board. She checked all her things in and her ticket, and only took her camera on the plane with her.  
  
Soon, Cora was up in the air, heading for Africa to meet up with the old shaman once again to speak with him. It was to be the beginning of a great adventure, journey, quest, call it what you want, it was to be the biggest thing that Piccolo and Cora would ever do together, even if they both never met. But deep inside Cora, she knew she would meet up with Piccolo on a path going two separate directions. There they may stop and talk or just go on without even knowing it. Only time and the place of the Earth and stars would tell them the truth, but even they kept it a secret from them, but not for long. 


	2. New and Old Friends

"One's Quest,  
  
Another's Journey"  
  
1 Part 2  
  
  
  
The flight to Africa took a long time, about three plane changes and thirteen hours to get there. Cora landed in Morocco, Africa; there she spent the night in a hotel. The next morning, around nine am, she took a regular bush plane almost to the middle of the desert, but it was enough for her to find where the shaman lived. That flight didn't take long, but it was a nice ride for her. The bush plane finally landed, a bumpy landing at that and Cora truly began her quest, not just for the shaman, but also for Piccolo.  
  
"Thank you," she said, as the pilot helped her with her packs and things. He nodded a reply and he was soon off in the air again.  
  
Cora looked around her, the sun bright and hot. In the distance she saw a truck driving towards her. She stood there as the truck stopped. An African man, in a uniform stepped out of the driver's seat of the truck.  
  
"Are you Cora?" he asked in a British accent.  
  
"Yes, I am. Did the." her voice stopped as the man spoke.  
  
"Yes, the old man sent me to take you to his hut. He would like to speak with you very soon. It's best we hurry, Cora."  
  
Worry came over her as she climbed in the truck, the man putting her things in the back.  
  
"What's wrong with the shaman?" she asked, worry in her voice.  
  
"He's very ill, he may be dying," the man said as he drove on towards the hut that was ten miles East.  
  
Cora just looked out her window in strong thought.  
  
'Everything is coming to circle. I was meant to come here to speak with him. I knew it, but then again didn't know it. I hope I make it on time.'  
  
"Here we are," the man said, as he stopped a few yards away from the old man's hut. Cora stepped out and grabbed her things and put them next to the entrance of the hut.  
  
"Thank you." She said, as the man waved goodbye and drove off in the other direction.  
  
She slowly stepped inside the hut and found that only the shaman was in there. He was laying on a bed of furs, dressed in his best.  
  
'I hope I'm not too late.' She thought.  
  
"You are right on time, my child," the shaman replied, opening his eyes a bit to see her. She walked over to his bedside and smiled.  
  
"What have you asked of me, sir?"  
  
"I need to give you some interesting facts you must know before you start going North," he replied, Cora seated next to him, listening closely to every single word he said. "The man you seek is not of this world, but of another. I know you know this, I just need to make sure you are correct of what you are about to undertake." Cora nodded. "Good. This man is wise and strong; you both will need each other's help to survive out there. Without the other, both shall not last long. This test of courage will be done by you both, without knowing it. At the end of your quest and his journey, you both will be rewarded by a great power, which rides in the heart of this man. He may not know it, but he carries with him the power of seven new rounded crystal spheres, that contain great power." He said, coughing a bit. The sound of his coughing startled Cora as she listen closely. She just sat there and waited for his fit to finish. She did not help the old man, simply because it was his time, and she did not dare interfere with nature's takings of life. It was the way, and from this respect she knew more of the Earth than what Piccolo walked upon underneath his feet.  
  
Piccolo had finished walking all over the countryside of Japan, and was eager to get across to China. By his luck he had found a large map of the Earth. It was made in great detail and was of great use to him, but he preferred not to use such things, only to walk and find his own way of the journey he took.  
  
It was getting late and he needed to get across to China as soon as he could. Wearing his new clothes, he masked himself from view of anyone. Walking down the pier, he towered over the people. Those who saw him, gave him plenty of room to walk around, no one messed with him, for they had no idea who he was and didn't want to find out. It was just too much of a risk that they would take upon themselves. The priests of the temples around Japan knew there was something strong and powerful and yet magical underneath that cloak. They knew to leave him alone, fearing the worst would come of them.  
  
He soon came upon a boat that only had its captain on board. He stood in front of the boat and held out three gold coins for the captain.  
  
The captain speaking in Japanese, Piccolo was quick to understand him.  
  
"What do I do with these little things?" the Captain snapped.  
  
"It's payment to get me to China."  
  
The Captain took one of the gold coins and bit it hard. One of his teeth chipping off on the hardness of the gold, he looked at it with wide eyes, a wide grin crossing his face.  
  
"Yes, come, come on board. For three gold coins I'll take you to India, if you want?" the Captain said.  
  
"There's no need to go that far. After this, I'll walk the rest of my way there." Piccolo replied, as he boarded the fishing boat.  
  
Soon, Piccolo was on his way to China, it being a trip of almost two hundred miles and the sea being a bit rough. But that didn't bother Piccolo one bit, he just stood there on the boat and watched intensely.  
  
Back in the shaman's hut, Cora sat there as she still listened to him.  
  
"You know of this power I speak of?" he asked.  
  
"Yes, sir, I do. But it's too much for you to understand."  
  
"Very well then," he said closing his eyes. "The man is traveling by sea. He will be there soon."  
  
"Where is he going?" she asked.  
  
"An old country, a country of the Great Wall."  
  
"He's going to China. I hope I can make it there to meet up with him."  
  
"Child, do not act so quickly. You will both meet soon enough." He said with another cough in his throat. "You must go now, child, go to him, he may need you." With that the old shaman passed on. Cora covered him up with the fur blanket and gathered her things. She looked back at the hut and smiled.  
  
'Thank you, Old Shaman, thank you for everything,' she said to herself. She took out her compass and saw that the arrow was pointing north. She smiled as rain began to fall on the Sahara. She was now, truly on her way to a great adventure that she would soon not forget for the rest of her life.  
  
A few days later, Piccolo was only a mile away from the East coast of China, which also bordered a bit of Russia to the North and North Vietnam to the South.  
  
"Are you sure you wanted to go this way?" the Captain asked, Piccolo nodding in reply. The boat then moved near a dock and Piccolo jumped off the side of the boat to the dock, throwing the other two gold coins to the Captain. As Piccolo walked up the dock, the man yelled out a thank you.  
  
Making it to the end of the dock, he hurried his pace now to get away from the guards that kept an eye on the border entrance. Hiding behind a building, making sure no one saw him, he flew up to the roof and jumped each rooftop to get into the city. He knew he had to hurry to make it to the country-side, he wasn't safe at all in the big cities and small towns, especially the big city of Beijing, China. He soon found himself in the small city of Changfukeng. There he found a nice old woman to help him a bit.  
  
"Mame, where might I find the nearest river?" he asked.  
  
She looked up and gave him a sweet smile.  
  
"Go west and you can't miss it, there you will find the river you seek." She said kindly.  
  
"Thank you," he said, bowing to her.  
  
It had taken him many hours to get to the river; there he would take it to the countryside, where he would be safest.  
  
Traveling the edge of the river, he soon found it to be very dark and he had to find a place to rest for the night, before going out again. He found a group of tall plants and stayed there meditating the night away once again.  
  
The next morning, Piccolo picked up his pace of walking the river's edge. He took a drink from his canteen, looking out over the river a bit. Just a little ways down river he found a young boy polling his small but fairly large long raft like boat along the river up stream. He waved the boy down and asked for a ride the furthest he could go. The boy agreed and Piccolo boarded another boat once again.  
  
'I can't fly, that would bring way too much attention to myself to these people.' He said to himself, sighing a bit. The boy and Piccolo said nothing and the boy did not ask for payment.  
  
A few hours later, the boy stopped the boat way up river, further than what Piccolo thought. He got off the boat and thanked the boy and he went on his way. Piccolo looked in his pouch he brought with him and found that there were only six more coins left for payment of help.  
  
'I'd better save these for emergencies.' He thought as he walked on up river further and slowly into the mountains.  
  
He finally was deep enough in the forest of China that he took off his turban and hood of the cloak off. It was deafly hot in the forest, and that didn't bother him that much, but he was wearing dark colors after all. Stopping to look around, he heard far in the distance a running waterfall. He followed his good hearing to the falls and soon found them. He took off his cloak and gloves and put them on a rock near by. He bent down to take a drink of the fresh cool water from a little trickle from the falls.  
  
'I'd might as well cool myself off and get cleaned up a bit.' He said as he took off his gi outfit and boots and placed them near the rest of his clothes. He stepped in the waterfall pool slowly and kept looking around, making sure no prying eyes were on the watch. Only some birds in the trees watched and sang their songs, as he sat down on a smooth flat rock in the pool.  
  
"Aww." he said, as the feel of the cool water relaxed his tired; hot body.  
  
The sound of the waterfall, calmed his thoughts as well. He was so tightened up on trying to make it alive out here, without being noticed, that he almost forgot why he was really here. He was here to relax and have a vacation and at the same time, explore this planet for his own fun and adventure. Sitting there in the waterfall's pool, he thought for sure he would just live right there in it and do nothing else, but he knew he had to leave soon. He closed his eyes and listened to everything around him and stopped thinking for once. The smell of the falling leaves from the trees relaxed him even more, as a smile crossed his face. It was very rare, if ever, Piccolo would smile at something, but for this he did and he felt good about it for once. His bliss of peace at last was about to be broken. He perked up, looked behind him and heard footsteps walking towards him. The person must have been a mile away or less and seemed to be in a hurry in his or her steps for some reason.  
  
"Don't come any further!" Piccolo growled as he heard the footsteps stop.  
  
"I'm sorry, sir, if I've disturbed you," a young soft female voice called out from a few yards away from the falls.  
  
"Stay right there, turn your eyes, woman!" he yelled to her, the woman turning her back to him, but she couldn't see him anyway, of how thick the forest was.  
  
He got out of the pool and quickly dried himself off and got dressed very quickly. Putting on almost everything he had, to hide his body and face from the woman.  
  
"It's okay now, you may step forward if you wish." He replied to her. The young woman walking towards him, her eyes turned down from his dark gaze upon her.  
  
She was a fair woman, a shine maiden at that and the shrine must not have been far away from where the falls were. She was dressed in a white, and blue, hair slightly tied up in a bun and what was not tied, flowed down her back, soft and wavy black. Her eyes black as the night, but sparkled beautifully with hints of stars in them, her skin lightly fair to the look, with soft rosy colored cheeks.  
  
"You may look up at me, woman," he said, as the woman looked up.  
  
"Are you here on a journey?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, I have only been traveling for maybe a few weeks now. Is there a shrine near by?"  
  
"Yes, I came here to clean the waterfall pool, but now that you are here, you are welcome at the shrine. If you'd like?" she asked, her eyes shinning as she blushed a bit.  
  
"All I ask for is a safe passage through this country that will only have me walk in the forests and mountains and meadows. I do not wish to go near any villages, towns, or cities."  
  
"The High Priest can help you in this. Come with me, and we shall help you," the woman said, as she motioned for him to follow. He gathered his things and fixed his outfit a bit more as he walked behind her.  
  
Soon, they came upon a small temple in the forest a few miles away where Piccolo had been. The temple was clean all around, beauty all around it's gardens and walk ways. As they came to the temple gate, the High Priest greeted them.  
  
"Welcome to my temple," the old man said with a bow. He motioned for the shrine maiden to do her work. She left in a hurry, but not until she looked back at Piccolo, her face blushing a bit more. "I know why you are here traveler. You seek guidance though a safe way around this country." Piccolo nodded. "I have an old map that can give you this guidance, it will take you all over this country." He motioned for Piccolo to enter and he did.  
  
The old man said nothing as Piccolo followed him into the main room of the temple, where the Priest had his maps. On the wall, stood a very large shelf with many maps and scrolls rolled up on it. The Priest picked one that was needed and handed it to Piccolo, as he bowed to the man as a thank you.  
  
"This is my best map and I don't just give it to anyone who comes along. You need this map more than I, traveler. Would you like to stay for a time?" he asked.  
  
"No thank you. I am in need to get on my way."  
  
The Priest nodded and Piccolo bowed before him again. He walked out of the room and turned to the shrine. The bell looked very old, cracked gold or brass, ribbons of all colors hung around the bell.  
  
"My great-grandfather made this temple for the traveler. Here the traveler comes and asks for good fortune and guidance from Buddha," the old Priest said as he walked away.  
  
Piccolo looked around him for a moment at where he was. He did not really have a religion nor cared to, but it didn't hurt to ask for protection at least once here. He knew from this country and from Japan that they were old and full of ancient ways. He walked slowly to the statue of the Buddha, and knelt down before it, bowed his head and prayed to the god. He had never prayed before and for some reason wasn't sure if he was doing it right, but in his heart he knew it was the right thing to do at the time. For the first time in his life he was afraid of the humans here. He knew nothing about them, but he knew if he was found out, he would be taken captive in a jail or even killed. From what he figured these humans did not have the power to kill a being like him, but he did not dare take any risks. After a while, he looked up at the statue and stood before it. He rang the bell a few times and bowed to the Buddha and then went on his way out through the main gate. As he walked through the gate, the young shrine maiden waited for him.  
  
"Are you following me?" he asked.  
  
"No, I'm just seeing you on your way. Making sure you are happy to continue your journey." She replied.  
  
"Yes, I am glad to begin again."  
  
The woman nodded and bowed to him as she walked back into the temple.  
  
Still in Morocco, Africa, for the past three days Cora knew that if she walked her way to Libya, she wouldn't have made it alive almost, she needed a plane and fast if she was to walk the rest of the way once she got to Turkey so she could walk up north further, but she wasn't sure if she would make it in time to meet him. She knew she was rushing it, but she couldn't help herself. She was exited to meet Piccolo.  
  
Walking down a main road that lead north, she haled down a truck to take her to a big airport. Many hours later, she was at the airport of Libya. She paid the driver and then got a first class flight to Turkey. It was a short flight, but still too long for Cora. She soon landed on Turkish soil and she new she had a long way to go. She looked at her map she had with her, and started to walk the main roadways across this country. Many cars that drove by her honked their horns, and some even stopped to see if she needed a lift. Of course she did not want to cheat, but after a long days walk across most of Turkey she needed a lift and found a bus heading her way. She boarded it and was on her way once again.  
  
She was able to walk many miles, almost a full hundred miles all by herself, all because of the training she took upon herself and all the meditating she did to make herself stronger. You could say, she had her own chi or ki helping her on her quest and that was pretty much true. She trained by herself by books and videos of kung-fu, mediation, chi and ki. So much training that most people would have given up after only three hours of it, but she trained much longer than that, she trained for almost a full twelve hours, with some breaks in between.  
  
It was now very late in the night and Cora was asleep in her seat. The driver woke her, as she found herself in the next country or at least close to the boarder.  
  
"Where am I?" she asked the driver, he speaking very little English.  
  
"Russia," the man replied.  
  
Cora sat up right away and got off the bus. Out front of the bus were all her packs and things. She thanked the driver in Turkish and gathered her things again. She looked at her map area of Russia by a street lamp and decided to travel even by night to make it. She went into a restaurant and found the bathroom to get changed. She knew the night would be very cold and she needed better protection from the cold night air. She put on her thick cotton jumpers on, on top of that her dark green velvet pants, long sleeved shirt, wool socks and hiking boots. She walked of the restaurant and was stopped by a waitress.  
  
"Mame, wouldn't you like to have something to eat? You look like you haven't eaten much." The woman asked in a Turkish accent.  
  
She looked up at the woman and smiled. "Sure, why not."  
  
After eating, Cora made another order to take with her, a big order of good thick foods that would last her. She put that in her other backpack that was empty she brought with her on the trip and placed the food inside carefully. She paid the food bill and was on her way again, walking into Russia.  
  
A few hours into the night, she came upon one of the Russian boarder gates. The officers stopped her and asked her for her passport. She showed them and let her own her way, but not until the officers checked her packs. There they found nothing wrong and sent her on her way.  
  
Sighing, 'That was close, I thought for sure I would be staying in Turkey a bit longer. Glad those officers where nice and understood what was going on. Lucky for me one of them spoke fairly good English,' she thought as she continued to walk to the main high way road through Russia. She put on her dark green velvet cloak as she walked, put the hood over her head as the clouds passed quickly over head going West.  
  
Back in China, Piccolo was too walking through the night to get good time. He had no idea why he kept on walking and he didn't know where he needed to go. It almost bothered him, but not as much as you may think. He enjoyed being out on his own, with out any of the Zetto team flying by to find him and bothering him of his things he did. After a while of walking in the deep forest he came across a panda bear sleeping in the bamboo stocks. He slowly walked around the great creature, but stopped to rest near the beast. For some reason he felt safe being near this creature. He made himself comfortable and went into meditation.  
  
The next morning, the panda bear was already gone and Piccolo knew it. The warm sun beamed down on the forest floor as he opened his eyes. He looked up at the sky and flew up a bit over the forest to look around. He saw for miles nothing but forest and flew up higher, keeping an eye out for anyone watching. Again, up so high he found it to be only forest and instead of walking he flew as fast he could up North. Very quickly it seemed he found himself around a lot of people a few miles ahead of him. He landed safely with no one noticing and walked the rest of the way.  
  
Finding himself a few miles away from a great long wall, he decided to find out what it was. He came to the entrance of the wall, where he had to pay to walk it.  
  
Glaring a bit at the idea of paying he turned away. A man stopped him.  
  
"Aren't you going to see the Great Wall of China?" the man asked in Chinese language. Piccolo turned around and sighed.  
  
'I might as well.' He thought to himself. Of course he did not understand Chinese, but he hoped that someone understood Japanese.  
  
"I only have gold coins to pay, non of your money." He replied in Japanese to the man.  
  
The man understanding him, let him go in for free, but not until he spoke with the manager about it. The manager let him in and what luck that was. Piccolo thanked the manager and walked his way atop the wall. Piccolo knew from just the old energy he felt from this wall had, he knew it was VERY old. As he walked, all the tourists looked at him strangely, they had never seen such a tall man like this, specially when he was wear mostly dark colors and he was hooded, no one could even see his eyes, even if they tried. Looking up over the west side of the wall, he saw rolling hills and lush greenery all around. It was a beautiful country and he hated to leave it so soon to travel more. He turned around and went back to the entrance of the wall and began to leave China behind. He looked at his map as he walked down a dirt road and headed for Mongolia.  
  
It was getting close to fall now, it was the month of September and the winds of Asia blew a bit cold as both of the travelers walked to meet up with each other. Only Cora knew why she traveled by herself and knew who she was to be looking for. Piccolo on the other hand did not know why he traveled so quickly, but he guessed it was just because he didn't feel like slowing down. He enjoyed every minute of traveling this planet, it was beautiful and yet dangerous.  
  
Finding it very cold that day in Russia, she found an abandoned cottage and stayed there for a bit until the windstorm passed. She got out her backpack of food and sat down on a bench and ate in the cottage. The food was cold, but that didn't bother her, she would eat just about anything and everything if she really wanted to. After eating a early supper it seemed, she laid down for a nap.  
  
She awoke to the sound of birds singing in the late afternoon day around the cottage. She repacked her things and got started again. She stepped out and looked at her map, taking a drink of water as she looked.  
  
'Well, I'll start going to Mongolia,' she said to herself.  
  
This time instead of walking the roads she took to the forest a bit more. It was a hard walk, up steep hills and mountains, but it was worth it. She had never seen Russia before and loved the smell of the forest. The wind blew cold again, but that didn't stop her, she kept going, knowing she was very close to Piccolo, she could almost sense his presents. But she knew she was further away than she really thought.  
  
Piccolo kept walking too, trying to leave China and head for Mongolia himself. Soon, both travelers would find each other and neither of them knew what would be in store for them. Would they pass each other with not a thought of who the other was or even a wonder of who the other was? Would Cora call his name and turn to him as a friend or fear him and go home unhappy for the rest of her life, knowing she didn't start out meeting him on the right foot. Only time and the weather of Earth would tell if it was to be of them meeting, and that is just what the Earth did. 


	3. The Meeting

"One's Quest,  
  
Another's Journey"  
  
Part 3:  
  
"The Meeting"  
  
  
  
Piccolo and Cora had traveled only in a month's time through two countries each just about. Piccolo traveled by land most of the way and a few times by boat. Cora traveled mostly by land, and by a few plane trips, but both made great time, even though it didn't seem geographically possible for them to travel so quickly over great amounts of land.  
  
The weather got a bit colder in China, and Piccolo knew a blizzard was coming soon up in the mountains. If he didn't make it over the boarder soon, he would be caught in China a few days extra. Seeing his way safely through the forest with hardly any humans around, he took flight over the Great Khingan Mountain Range. Some snow had fallen on the mountain peaks as he flew overhead. The cold air on his face didn't bother him one bit. He was so used to all kinds of weather, that he thought nothing would be so different here on this planet, it was so much, it seemed to him, like Chikyuu, but then again it wasn't.  
  
Cora on the other hand, had a tougher time walking over the mountains she had come upon. It too was cold and she too feared a blizzard coming soon. But she had to push on, she wasn't that far from Mongolia anyway, and to rest was almost to be foolish. If she had at least a little, she might have gotten caught in the storm of snow.  
  
'Winter, must be coming sooner this year,' she thought as she trekked on and upwards. The mountain air was starting to get thin as she moved up higher. 'I can't go on like this. I have to go back a bit and walk around the mountains or at least try to find a safer, much easier way there.' She said as she began back down the mountain. Not long did it take her to get to the bottom, where she found what looked like a warned down path, a flat path at that. She took that, and found that she could walk much faster. She stopped and looked back at the mountain as she took a drink from her water canteen. 'Wow, how could I have wanted to go up that? I must be crazy or at least desperate.' She thought as she looked ahead of her. She could see that the path took her completely around the mountains, but how could this be, she never saw it there before? Shrugging what happened, she kept going, almost nonstop.  
  
Piccolo now found himself over the boarder of China and into Mongolia. He flew behind a mountain and started to walk down it over the boarder to this new country. He stopped for a moment and looked out over the cliffs, the wind blowing his cloak in all directions. He sighed and started on his way again down the peaks.  
  
Walking finally on soft, flat ground he finally made it to Mongolia it only taking an hours time. He sat down and rested, meditating, the wind calming him a bit, as if Earth was talking to him in gentle whispers. But his meditating state was quickly interrupted as his ears flicked a bit as he heard a rumbling above him. He looked up and flew off just in time as a rockslide just about came down on him.  
  
"That was close," he said as he floated there in the air, watching the rocks tumbling. He landed a mile away from the rockslide and found, what he hoped, a safer place to meditate. He sat near a tree and closed his eyes. Again the wind blew past his ears as the Earth spoke to him you could say. He sighed a bit as he finally calmed down.  
  
'I've traveled so far and so quickly. So, why have I come to this country?' he asked, as millions of thought crossed his mind. 'Was I meant to come here?'  
  
He growled a bit, finding his mind that was racing with great thought, making him unable to calm down and meditate properly. He sighed and opened his eyes and just laid back against the tree looking around him, some caribou grazing near by in a great field opening, with no care in the world that Piccolo, one of the strongest Zetto team fighters was there. They did sense his power, but knew he wouldn't hurt them.  
  
'I've never seen creatures like these on Chikyuu. They look better than those stupid dinosaurs,' he thought as he remembered what those blubbering fat things looked like. 'It sure is good to be away from those dinosaurs too,' he chuckled a bit. He took a drink from his water canteen as two male caribou began to spare against each other for a mate or territory borders.  
  
He looked at what he could of where the sun was and only found it covered up by too many clouds, he got up and went on his way once more, taking flight over the land. He found himself taking his time, unlike before. That didn't bother him, he began to relax more than usual and enjoy his trip more and more every day.  
  
Cora had finally after many hours, found herself at the Mongolian border. She showed the border patrolman her passport and he let her through.  
  
'Wow, I must be lucky or something,' she thought as she kept on walking. She stepped off her path and found a tree branch that was big enough to be a staff. She grabbed it and began to flip it around her a bit.  
  
The wind suddenly picked up and brought with it the smell of something that wasn't normal to the land. She smelled the air and wide eyed just about couldn't believe it.  
  
'This can't be who I think it is?' she thought as she walked. 'I have no clue what his body sent smells like, so how in the world would I know in the first place. But that smell is so different than what I've smelled before.'  
  
She walked a few more miles until she found a fallen tree to sit on. She took out her carving knife and began to trim the twig branches from the staff. Soon she had herself a nice, strong staff to walk with for balance. She took off her cloak and spun the staff around her hands a bit, trying to get the feel of the wood and the weight of it.  
  
"This will do nicely," she said as she put her cloak back on and hooded herself.  
  
Piccolo landed on the ground, and walked the rest of the time. He walked for many miles until he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He felt a strange energy coming over the hill in front of him. The power was of this planet and strong at that, magically put most of it.  
  
'It's probably just another power I feel from this land,' he thought as he walked on over the hill.  
  
Cora on the other side of the path looked up at the man in dark clothing in front of her. They both passed each other, but as Cora passed him, she stopped and looked back. Her heart racing so fast she was sure she would have a heart attack. Time seemed to slow down as she just watched the dark clothed man walk on. She took a deep breath and called out to him.  
  
"Good day, Piccolo." She said, sweat forming on her brow, her heart racing even faster, she thought for a moment she was on a roller coaster.  
  
He turned around and looked at her.  
  
"How do you know my name?" he asked, walking a little towards her.  
  
She swallowed hard and answered him finally with a deep breath.  
  
"I would know you if you where in human form, Namekian."  
  
Piccolo's eyes went wide and he just stood there for a full minute in shock.  
  
"Don't look so shocked. I mean you no harm and your secret will be safe with me. I am of fae of this Earth and I keep to my word," she said with a bow and took off the hood.  
  
"How can I really trust you?" he asked, with a bit of a growl.  
  
"I know where you come from, you come from Chikyuu, another form of this Earth. You are from the Zetto team and you are a Namek. I do not know why you are here, but if you tell me, you and I can be of great help to each other."  
  
Piccolo just stood there even longer, he wasn't sure if he could really trust this human woman and if he did, he would have to show her what he looked like underneath all that dark fabric. From under the hooded vale he looked at her sternly, glaring in so much surprise, he could kill her in one blow if he wanted to.  
  
"You wouldn't kill me, cause you know damn good that if I die, who else could you trust to get you around this country or for that matter other places in this world," she added, her voice trembling.  
  
From that, he removed the dark vale like mask and walked up to her a bit closer, the sun that could shine through the clouds, highlighted his chin and mouth only, the rest of him hidden from the darkness of the hood. She smiled a bit, now calm, but then again not calm. She stayed on heightened alert for anything to come her way from Piccolo. He was a very strong creature and she wasn't that strong to even put a mean blow to him.  
  
"I guess I will have to trust you, human," he said with a long sigh. "But be warned only this time, you cross me or use me in any way for your kind, I will be sure to kill you and be on my way."  
  
"Yes, sir," she said with a salute and bow.  
  
"What did you do that for?" he asked.  
  
"Just out of respect and I intend to keep your trust and respect though this whole trip," she answered, her voice finally and truly calmed. "Now tell me, why have you come to this form of Earth?" she said, as she sat down on a large rock, holding her staff tightly and ready for anything from him.  
  
"I came her by the power of the Dragon Balls. It was very boring there for a great while and I needed to do something different, so Dende let me come here for a vacation, you could say. So far, it has been an easy trip, but then again, a hard one," he said as the wind suddenly picked up hard and fast.  
  
"Wooo.That wind is getting really hard now. I think we need to find some shelter." Cora said, standing up and pull her hood over her head.  
  
Piccolo nodded, "I saw a cave up in the mountains a few miles away from this spot. And it seems not to be safe to fly right now." He looked at her and smirked.  
  
"Yeah, I know I can't fly so that is so out of the question. It doesn't bother me if I walk, I'm so used to it, I could be a horse if I wanted and me fine with that."  
  
The two of them walked a few feet away from each other, but still close to make sure neither of them fell from the steep climb up to the cave. She looked at Piccolo's shoes and just couldn't believe it.  
  
'How could someone walk with those kinds of shoes? They're so thin it looks, he must have very hard feet,' she thought.  
  
"I walk more than I fly and yes I do have hard feet and I'm just used to it," he replied.  
  
Cora stepped back a bit in surprise, but she almost had forgotten that the Namekians could read thoughts of another person and speak in telepathy. She chuckled to herself as she kept walking.  
  
After a hard climb up the mountain a bit, they finally came to the cave, it being big enough for them both, where they could be at separate spots in the cave, but still be close to the fire if needed.  
  
"You stay here, I'll go get some firewood." Piccolo said as he walked out the cave.  
  
"Wait," she called out. "I haven't seen that many trees or even dried sticks here. Are you sure you can find some?" Piccolo nodded as he flew off. "Okay, but don't come bitching to me that you couldn't find anything." She said to herself.  
  
"I will, just shut up and wait!" Piccolo rumbled out to her a few feet away from the cave.  
  
She sat back a bit in surprise. 'Oh yeah, I forgot,' she thought with a laugh, making sure to block her thought from Piccolo. 'They have the perfect hearing. Duh.'  
  
An hour later, Piccolo came back with a great load of wood and sticks on his back. He dropped them on one side of the cave and started to build the fire.  
  
"Save your matches," he said as he continued to build the fire. Cora stood back a bit further against the wall of the cave, she knew what was to happen next, and he made one blast of firry energy to make the wood start up. He looked up at her, his dark black eyes staring at her. "You're still afraid of me, aren't you?"  
  
"A bit, but I knew you were going to do that, that's why I stepped back," She said with a trembling voice. "I don't dare want to get in the line of fire around you," she smirked.  
  
The fire now was bright and very warm; she slowly sat back down near the fire.  
  
"Aren't you going to take off your pack?" he asked with a light smirk on his lips.  
  
She laughed a bit as she took off her cloak and put her very large pack of camping gear on the ground by the wall of the cave.  
  
"I haven't really rested or slept much since I started last month for this quest to find you," she said, quickly covering her mouth.  
  
"What did you say? Did I just hear you say you knew I was here on this planet?" Piccolo growled, standing up, towering over Cora greatly. "How did you know?" His fangs barring tightly as he clenched down on his teeth at her.  
  
Cora backed up against the cave wall, shaking hard as her heart almost stopped.  
  
"I.I." she stammered trying desperately to speak, but she couldn't.  
  
"Tell me now!" he yelled, the cave echoing his deep voice.  
  
"It was a prediction! I saw you walking the countryside of Japan in the flames of my fireplace back home in New York! That's all!" she yelled back, her voice echoing around the cave louder than Piccolo's.  
  
He stepped back a bit and sighed. Cora wasn't sure if that was enough to prove to him that it was the truth, what else could she do, but wait for his answer. He looked down on her, as she began to slide down the wall and sat down hard on the ground. He turned his back to her and leaned up against the entrance to the cave.  
  
'She must be telling the truth. She said she knew who I was and what I was, how could it be a lie or a way to use me?' he thought, he looked back at her, his eyes glaring, he growled and turned to her. "I believe you," he finally answered, Cora taking in a deep breath of relief.  
  
"Thank God, thank Kami," she whispered softly to herself, Piccolo hearing it though. She looked up at him and hoped she was being with him for the right reasons that the shaman said.  
  
"What is your name?" he asked, finally breaking the silence in the air.  
  
"My name is Cora, I came from over seas in New York, of America to find you and here it is, my predictions were correct. And what I'm about to tell you, I hope you don't get angry at me about it, cause it's the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God," she said looking him square in the face.  
  
"Okay then, tell me everything you know," he said as he sat back down in front of the fire.  
  
"But first, could you please remove your hood of your cloak?" she asked.  
  
"Not until I see it fit."  
  
She nodded and explained herself of her actions.  
  
"You may not know it, but." her speech was stopped suddenly.  
  
"About Dragonball Z, yes I know of it. My travels started in Japan last month and I saw everything of the animes. Seeing something like that just about made me sick, but they got mostly everything about the show out correctly."  
  
"Okay, that summed that up, thanks," she continued. "Anyway, I'm a big fanatic about all kinds of anime of Japan and I studied the forms of the characters from them. Over time I was able to talk with the creators of the animes and found all the characters zodiac sign charts, planet charts, number charts and such. One night, about a month ago or so, I was sitting by my fireplace and began to see an image in the flames. I saw you, only the backside of you walking the forest countryside of Japan. I couldn't believe what I saw and to show it was real, I turned to my charts I made of the anime characters and looked for yours. I had everything of you, to your zodiac sign, colors, and personality, and from that I was able to predict us meeting or at least you coming to our Earth for a visit. As I came to notice all of this, I looked out my great window, that over looked the field, the stars were out so brightly that night, and to make it even better, it was the time of the month for the shooting stars. One group of stars fell in the form of the Dragon Balls, as if they were laid out before a Namek's feet to be summoning the Eternal Dragon. And from that, I knew it was true and I had to get started to find you."  
  
"I saw those same stars that night," he replied.  
  
"I had a feeling you might have."  
  
"And I knew someone was watching them at that time, when it was morning in Japan," he said.  
  
"That was me, I was the one watching those stars."  
  
"Is there something else to this, that you haven't told yet?" he asked.  
  
"Oh yes, there is actually," she began. "I started my quest in Africa and for some reason I had to go see the old shaman, he was a good friend of mine whenever I came to Africa, he passed away after I spoke with him. But when I got there, he told me about you, or at least some of you in Wise Shaman tongue that was of riddles and things. But I knew he meant you, and I had to take the path to find you, and now here I am, talking with you."  
  
He nodded a bit and sighed, the wind whipping into the cave a bit, making the flames of the fire flicker. Cora covered herself up more with her cloak and just sat there looking at Piccolo.  
  
"I guess that is all I have to say, do you believe me?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, I believe you," he said as he slowly took off the hood from over his face.  
  
Cora finally saw the truth of what he looked like in real life, not at all like the anime had portrayed him to look like. He looked a bit human around the face, hardly any lips to show, but they were there like a human's, just thin. The antenna on his head were perfect of what the artist intended and his ears were so much like an elf's but much longer and they were perfect looking. The color of his skin was almost every shade of green possible when the light hit it just right. The blackness of his eyes were pursing and deep like the dark, starless night sky. She shook her head a bit, to stop herself from looking at him so much.  
  
"You can't be surprised, cause you've seen me before so many times," he said, smirking a bit.  
  
"It's not that at all, I just can't help but think how handsome you really are in real life. I've only dreamed of what you may look like, but my dreams couldn't even make you look so perfect as you look right now," she said blushing a bit. Piccolo had no idea what to make of that complement at all. He just sat there with a blank took on his face.  
  
Cora checked her watch, "It's getting late, I think we should rest for the night," she said as she unclipped her sleeping bag from the top of her camping gear pack. "And I know, you'll stay up keeping the fire going, and you don't sleep," she added, Piccolo nodding.  
  
She took off her boots and cloak and laid them near her camping pack and climbed into the sleeping bag and zipped it up. "Good night, Piccolo, and don't worry, I can get up before dawn by myself, but for this case I think I'd like to sleep in a bit, if that's okay with you?"  
  
"You look like you need the extra sleep. I won't bother you for some time then," he said with a very tiny smile.  
  
"Thank you, Piccolo," she said, as she slowly fell asleep.  
  
Piccolo, of course, stayed up all night, meditating and keeping to the fire. His thoughts were calmer now and he was able to meditate purely, he levitated above the ground a few feet as he began.  
  
'She must be harmless, if she wasn't she would have done something to me by now. I think I will be needing her around, how else will I make it out here in this new world that I've come upon,' he thought as he opened his eyes a bit to look at her.  
  
The next day, around nine in the morning, Piccolo went outside the cave and waited for Cora to wake up. She awake finding the campfire out and Piccolo nowhere in the cave. She quickly got off the ground and went outside.  
  
"You don't need to worry about me, Cora, I'm not going to leave you out here alone," he said seeing her at the corner of his eye.  
  
"So, you are alive. I was just wondering," she said as she walked back into the cave and got dressed with new clothing. "Don't come in here just yet, okay." She called out to him.  
  
She got dressed in everything new, knowing it was very cold up in the mountains of Mongolia. She was now dressed in white wool under pants and under shirt, blue jeans with flannel inside, wool socks, a red and green patterned flannel long sleeved shirt and her rainproof black trench coat and hiking boots. She took out what was left of her food from that restaurant and ate that, the put her clock inside it and got her packs back on her back.  
  
"Must you bring so much stuff?" Piccolo asked a bit annoyed.  
  
"Well, you don't eat anyway, and I have to. I've got a pan for cooking, silverware, a cup, my camera, sleeping bag, a weeks worth of clothing, money when I get into towns and cities, compass, my staff, and my hand gun just in case of trouble, and my hunting knife. Luckily I had my permit to carry that gun and knife and I had proof of what I was going to do. So far, passing a few borders into other countries I've been very lucky. If they found those two things, I wouldn't be here right now, I would be in jail or something," she said. "And if you think very well that I'm going to dump any of this stuff you are so mistaken."  
  
"Okay then, but don't come crying to me that you fell off the trail because of that heavy pack," he smirked as he walked down the mountain path, Cora following.  
  
"Very funny, Piccolo, very funny."  
  
'I thought so,' he said to himself.  
  
The wind had begun to blow a bit colder than usual and both of them knew that a blizzard probably would be coming soon down upon them. Some light snow had fallen that night on the mountain, it's white patches outlining the rocks as they walked. They had walked for hours going up and down small mountains and up across plain valleys, but it was all worth it. The land was barren at times, but yet beautiful. Cora stopped a bit behind to rest, as Piccolo went on ahead of her just a mile away. He soon came upon a heard of caribou migrating across the tundra. He quickly turned back around to bring Cora with him.  
  
She was sitting on a rock as she drank some water from her canteen; she looked up and saw Piccolo flying towards her.  
  
"What is it?" she said as he landed in front of her.  
  
"There's a great big heard of horned animals a mile up and I'm new here of course. I was just wondering if you knew what kinds of creatures those where?"  
  
She got up eagerly and followed him close by. They soon came upon the heard, Cora's eyes went wide as she looked at the beasts.  
  
Pulling Piccolo down to the ground, "Get low, you don't want a male caribou after you."  
  
"So that's what they're called," he whispered.  
  
"Yeah, and if you get in their way, you'll have a body full of their antlers on you for sure. It's getting close to their migrating season to go south for the winter and to mate as they come back up north," she explained, keeping a sharp eye out for any large male caribou. "Wow, aren't they beautiful?" Piccolo nodding. He had never seen such creatures on Chikyuu before and again; he was very pleased to be away from those bumbling dinosaurs.  
  
"You know Piccolo, if you want to know something about Earth, just ask me and I'll tell you what it is or if I don't know I'll find out," she added as she looked at him.  
  
Piccolo nodded his reply. "You know, you looked almost embarrassed to ask me, as if you would naturally know about this planet and it's inhabits. You don't have to be ashamed about that, if you didn't have me here, you would have not known what to do as you traveled."  
  
Piccolo glared at her harshly. "I was not embarrassed!" he growled.  
  
"Yes you were, just a bit. It's okay, I'll be here to help you out and you help me," she said, looking up at the heard. Suddenly fear came over her greatly as the most horrify thing came charging up after them. Piccolo looked up and grabbed Cora in his arms tightly as he flew upwards away from the charging male caribou, it stomping his hooves; snorting and calling out to them as if to ask for a challenge to fight.  
  
"See what I mean? You can't get them angered, it's not good," she said as she had just realized she was up in the air. "Oh my God!" she yelled, her heart racing.  
  
"Don't worry I'm not going to drop you," he said as he looked for a safe place to land. They finally landed about a few miles on the other side of the heard. "And also, don't worry, you have everything with you," he added as Cora check around her.  
  
"But where's my staff?" she asked.  
  
Piccolo opened up his dark cloak to reveal the staff inside. "I picked it up after you dropped it when we took off away from the heard," he said handing it to her. "It's a very nice piece of wood, if could be used to defend yourself you know."  
  
"Thank you, and yes I do know that, that's why I found it when I got to Russia," she said as she stood there looking where they were. She pulled out her compass and looked around. "Well, we are in the direction of West, why don't we hike around Russia for a bit and get out of this barren land of Mongolia, or would you rather stay here for a bit longer and see if we can find some natives. Maybe you would like to learn about these kinds of people."  
  
"Well, why not, I'm mostly here to learn about this planet and everyone in Chikyuu is waiting for me to come back and tell them everything."  
  
"Yeah, I bet," she smiled. "How long are you here on Earth anyway?"  
  
"Until the Dragon Balls are regenerated."  
  
"That will take a full year on Chikyuu, right?"  
  
"Yes, I'll be here for a full year or a bit more."  
  
"That will be plenty of time to travel all around this Earth, plenty of time," she smiled thinking of what could happen while they traveled together.  
  
Piccolo looked out around him and smelled the air a bit, the air crisp and cold.  
  
"I think we should walk a few more miles, going West like you suggested and bed down early tonight. I sense there will be a blizzard tonight," he said as he began to walk a bit ahead of her, Cora following very quickly behind.  
  
About five or more miles, they came across a river that had fish in it. Cora stopped and took out her hunting knife and patently waited for a fish to swim by, Piccolo looked back and just watched her. Not long after, she slammed the knife into the river water and came up with a nicely sized fish at the end of her long knife.  
  
"Ha! I knew I could do it," she said, putting the fish on the ground and cutting its head off with one blow. "Ahhh.that water's freezing!" she screamed as she tried to warm up her hands.  
  
"Now we really have to hurry to find shelter or you might get sick."  
  
"Nope not me, I've been in worse places, even in Africa. I'm fairly immune to most illnesses that are commonly cured. I've had all my shoots too," she said as she wrapped the fish in some butcher paper that she had in her pack. "And don't worry, I know how to cook anything. I learned most of my stuff from the shaman."  
  
"He must have taught you well then," he added.  
  
"Yes he sure did," she said getting up off the cold ground and walking towards Piccolo. "Shall we continue?" He nodded and they were on their way to finding shelter.  
  
A few more miles and they came upon another cave, it being close to the ground and very dry, laid with dried leaves and sticks for bedding.  
  
Cora pulled at his cloak to stop him from going in too far. "What are you doing?" he growled angrily. "I'm getting really tired of you pulling at me like this."  
  
"It's best I do not speak, for that is a bear's cave and I can smell him. Back away slowly, please, Piccolo," she said very concerned. "You see those bones right at the entrance?" he nodded as he looked. "The way they are placed is how you can tell it's a bear, and how the bedding it placed inside too. Bend down to the ground of the cave and smell it, and tell me how it smells to you," she said looking all around her, her eyes scanning the land for bears.  
  
Piccolo bent down and smelled the ground, his nose twitching at the hard sent. "It smells dirty and strong."  
  
"That's the smell of a bear, particularly a brown bear of Asia. I think we should get out of here now, Piccolo," she said, he nodded in reply. "Hush, don't move or make a sound and listen well to what you can hear." She said as she heard the faint sound of a brown-bear near by making the snorting sound of a warning. Piccolo got up and looked around, he too could hear it, but much clearer.  
  
"I think he smells the fish you carry with you. Drop the fish and well leave very soon." He said, spotting the bear very close over a hill. Cora up folded the fish from the wrapper and left it.  
  
"Man, after that easy catch I have to leave it for that bear. That sucks!" she said, as she made sure she had all her things with her. Piccolo looked at Cora and nodded.  
  
"You're lucky you are not that heavy, even with that pack," he smirked as he picked Cora up in both hands.  
  
"I'll just pretend I never heard that okay," she said as Piccolo took off just as the bear began to charge after there. As he flew away from the bear, they both looked back, seeing the bear eating the fish quickly.  
  
"We need to find shelter and quickly," Piccolo added.  
  
He flew for just a little bit until he came upon a group of natives outside their hut. He landed quickly, hoping that non of them saw him fly with Cora in his arms.  
  
"Well, now you get a chance to see some Mongolian people," Cora said as she looked over the hill. "We might as well go over there and ask for a night in their house." Piccolo followed her closely, making sure he was covered up from their sight, but his eyes were showing through the cloak.  
  
They soon came to the hut, and what looked to be the leader of this small group came up to greet them, but then again, it wasn't that much a nice greeting.  
  
"Do you know their language, Cora?" Piccolo whispered.  
  
"Nope, but I can try and hope for someone in the group that speaks some English."  
  
With some effort, Cora tried to talk with them the best she could to get some shelter for the night. After a long talk, the leader of the group of ten people, let Piccolo and Cora sleep in the hut, but for only that one night and they had to leave early in the morning. Cora and Piccolo didn't rest well that night, fearing that the people would get suspicious of them, but soon Cora finally slept and Piccolo laid down to make himself appear to be sleeping, but of course he wasn't.  
  
The next morning, Cora woke up, her stomach rumbling loudly with hunger. Hearing the growl, one of the women of the group prepared some food for them. Cora bowed a thank you and ate slowly, making sure not to make herself sick. She turned to Piccolo, who was sitting up looking around him.  
  
Leaning over to him, "You better eat anyway to show you are pleased to have stayed here," she whispered to him, Piccolo pulling his hood over his face and taking off the vale, he took the food and ate it just to shut Cora up. Soon after, both of them got their things and were on their way to Russia going west.  
  
"Did I say something wrong?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"In a way you did. In this world you have to bid by what the hell I say to you or I can leave you here to die or get killed by some wild animal. What I say goes okay, and what happened there this morning, I just about wanted to smack you across the face. They were kind a nice to give us a place to sleep for the night and you eat that food like you hated it. You better hope that the next time we come across a small group of natives like that, you act nicer okay," she stammered at him, she turned back and saw Piccolo standing there a little ways from her. She ran back, hoping she didn't make him angry.  
  
"I know you are new here, but you have to swallow your damn pride and get over yourself or you will die out here in this world. I know more than you do out here and without me, you will be nothing and you will come back, either hurt, with nothing interesting to tell your friends back at Chikyuu or you will come back to them dead. I very well would not like to hear that they brought you back by the Dragon Balls and found you dead on the ground, okay? How more plainer do you want me to explain this to you?"  
  
Piccolo took off his hood and vale and looked at her sternly, he stood their saying nothing, but what Cora could see on his face, she knew he wasn't happy what she told him, and he was a bit hurt by it, but she wasn't sure if she could see it on him or not.  
  
"I'm so sorry, Piccolo, to have told you in such a way, but it's the truth and you need to realize that and if you don't, I hate to part ways right here," she said as a tear welted up in her eyes.  
  
Swallowing hard, "This isn't easy for me you know to say this, but." he began pausing a bit. "I have been a bit hard, haven't I?" She nodded slowly. "I'm just used to taking my own way of control on things. You are right, Cora, I need to trust you and learn from you. I'd hate to come back to Chikyuu with nothing much to tell them or be dead."  
  
Cora looked deep into his black eyes and wasn't sure if she saw tears in his eyes or not.  
  
"It's okay, Piccolo, no matter what we argue about between each other, I will not leave you behind. Just like what you said to me, 'I won't drop you or leave you here," she said smiling, Piccolo giving bit of a smile back. "Let's get going now. It looks like it's going to be a nice day out," she added as she looked up at the sky, the sky showing a little bit of blue in between the clouds.  
  
They both walked side by side though the rest of Mongolia. Seeing many new things like gray Siberian foxes, more caribou, crows, rabbits, and big birds of prey. As they traveled through this land, Cora told him everything she could about what animals were what and about the plants around them.  
  
Cora wasn't sure, but she thought for once she heard Piccolo laughing a little at what they talked about. She sighed softly to herself, as she knew she was in the right place finally in this world. She knew the great journeys ahead would be tough and easy at the same time. They would go through everything together and then some. It was to be the most exciting journey both of them would ever take. 


	4. Cold Nights In Russia

"One's Quest,  
  
Another's Journey"  
  
Part 4:  
  
1 "Cold Nights in Russia"  
  
Not long did it take them to cross over the border of where Mongolia and Russia connected to the west. The day's travel was easy, the weather was just about perfect and coming to the beginning of Russia like this was just great.  
  
"What exactly is in Russia?" Piccolo asked as they walked through a bit of forest.  
  
"Well, it's a harsh land, the winters are very, very cold, they have Siberian tigers up here, but mostly up in the most northern area and they are rarely seen. There's some desert, many great mountains, a lot of forest, as you can see, and a great big city that I've always wanted to see. That city is called Moscow and it's really big, and in the center of the city there is this place called, The Red Square. I don't know how to really explain it to you, but the main building is breath takingly beautiful. You'll have to see it to believe it." She said with great passion in her voice.  
  
"How far is it to Moscow, Russia?"  
  
She stopped and sat on a stump and took out her map and ruler to measure the miles. "Its about.Oh my God."  
  
"What? Is it really far?" Piccolo asked looking over her shoulder at the map.  
  
"It's 3,600 miles to Moscow, Russia. It will take us about two months or much more to walk it there," she said looking up at Piccolo with wide eyes.  
  
"Well then, I guess we'll have to fly the rest of the way, but fly carefully and secretly."  
  
"But are you in the mood to fly that far carrying me and that big pack of mine?"  
  
"I'll carry the pack on my back and I'll carry you in my arms. It won't be much, considering I can carry much more and for that matter it takes a lot for someone to punch me and I hit a wall straight through."  
  
"Oh yeah, I forgot."  
  
"How much more are you going to forget about me?" he asked, with a smirk. Cora shrugged and took off her pack to fix things more securely to it.  
  
"There, I think this will be more of a balanced piece of work for you to carry," she said handing the large camping pack to him with one hand. Her muscles bulging up as she lifted the heavy pack.  
  
"You're stronger than you look, Cora," Piccolo commented.  
  
"Thank you. You want to walk more or fly instead?"  
  
"I think we should take to the air now while we can," he said as he took off his cloak and put the camping pack on his back, securing it tightly over his shoulders. "This isn't very heavy at all," he said as he stood up straight. He bent down and picked up his cloak and put it back on, putting it over the pack, it making him look like he was a hunchback. Cora buttoned up her trench coat and put on her leather gloves and earmuffs. "You need all of that cause of the cold air?"  
  
"Yeah, cause it's not good to let your ears and hand get cold up here. You could get frost bight, but you look like you can handle anything," she said smiling up at him, Piccolo nodding.  
  
"Are you ready to go?" Piccolo asked, as he covered his face with some of the fabric of his cloak and his arms out ready to carry her, she nodded as he picked her up in his arms. Very quickly Piccolo took off into the air, missing the fur trees by inches of scratching Cora's face. "How long will it take us to travel to Moscow by air?"  
  
"At your fastest, but most careful speed not to over do yourself, it could take us a few hours, but I'd rather we travel about a quarter of the way there by air, that way we can see the rest of the land and its towns by foot. What do you think?" Piccolo nodded as he flew up higher a bit and finally leveling off straight. Cora took out her compass, from her pocket and looked at it. "Keep going about northwest and we'll be just fine."  
  
The land seemed to blend together as one big mass, as Piccolo flew past it, way up over head, where no one would notice them in the sky. Russia was beautiful with its many forests and mountains, a few big lakes as they passed overhead.  
  
"What a view this is. I can barely get a view like this even on a plane," she said, chuckling a bit.  
  
"What's so funny?"  
  
She chuckled again, "Flying by Piccolo is the best way to fly," she said laughing very hard and holding onto him tightly. Piccolo just rolled his eyes at her with that joke. "I couldn't help myself, Piccolo, sorry."  
  
"It's okay, I got the joke, but I didn't like the idea of it being about me."  
  
"Sorry," she apologized with a soft smile, Piccolo smirking back at her a bit, trying not to laugh. "Oh, look over there," she pointed to the southwest, Piccolo looked into that direction. "Those are white artic geese. They must be heading south for the winter. Wow, there's so many of them," she said starting to count them.  
  
"There's thirty of them," Piccolo said.  
  
Cora blinked, "Wow, you're fast with counting," she said as the geese kept flying past them.  
  
Hearing something so familiar in the sky, she looked out in front of her. A Russian black eagle was flying straight for them and it wasn't very happy.  
  
"We must have crossed over its territory. If the eagle does attack, don't kill it, just scare it away okay," she said, Piccolo nodding.  
  
Sure enough, the Russian black eagle came straight up to them with its talons bared out sharp. The bird bombed over Piccolo, dodging that, the bird of prey returned again with great anger. Piccolo spun around, throwing Cora out of his arms as the bird went after Piccolo.  
  
"Cora!" Piccolo yelled, as she fell faster to the Earth. Piccolo growled and blasted an energy beam near the bird's left wing. The eagle screamed off away from him finally. He looked down seeing that the ground was coming up very close to Cora.  
  
Screaming as she fell, Piccolo dived for her as fast as he could. "Hold on, Cora!" He yelled, as the ground got faster and faster up behind her. He just couldn't stand it any more and quickly disappeared and then reappeared underneath Cora. She landed into his arms, unconscious, just in time. He held he tightly, making sure she wouldn't fall; looking down he saw that they really made it just in the nick of time. Piccolo was floating just fifty feet above the ground. He landed and found near by a bit of a ruined down castle, he then carried her carefully to the castle and put her on the ground in a corner gently.  
  
He then put the camping pack on the ground and looked for her cloak. He finally found it and covered her up in it, making a soft pad for her head with one of her shirts.  
  
"You better wake up, Cora, if not, I'll have to make it on my own, no matter how hard that will be," he said softly as he looked around the castle.  
  
What was left of the castle was a main tower, not that tall, about thirty feet and a roof on top to keep the rain out, but it seemed a bit rattan, some stone window slits and a main door. He walked around more and found some wood to start a fire. The clouds began to gather in great thunderheads as he gathered more wood outside. A single raindrop hit him on the tip of his nose as he bundled the wood up and carried into the castle ruins. With the fire going, it was much warmer in the castle than before and Cora began to stir from under the cloak. Piccolo gently picked her up and placed her near the fire in the center of the room. He just sat there warming himself up waiting for Cora to wake up.  
  
A few hours later, Cora finally woke, finding Piccolo meditating, his cloak hanging up in a dry spot on a wall and her camping pack next to it. She looked down beside her and found some snack bars that he had found in her pack. She smiled at him and quietly ate some of the energy bars.  
  
'I forgot about these,' she thought as she ate.  
  
Piccolo opened his eyes and looked up at her sitting by the fire, her cloak around her and her trench coat off lying next to her.  
  
"You're finally awake, I'm glad," he answered.  
  
"You happy? That you don't see everyday now do you?" she said with a smirk on her face, she giggled a bit and then hushed seeing the stern look on his face. "Excuse me for just one moment," she said getting up and walking over to her pack, Piccolo going back to his meditating. She got out some things of hers and went outside a mile or less away from the castle. She came back a few minutes later to find Piccolo looking at her funny. She was fairly wet from the rain. "Hey, I had to do my business you know and for that matter I'm a woman, I have womanly things to attend to, if you don't mind," she snorted, her nose in the air, she giggled and curled back up in her cloak, trying to dry off.  
  
Piccolo shook his head. "I knew that, you didn't have to say it in that way either."  
  
"I swear if you heard everything from me, so help me God, I'm going to kick you, which I doubt I could do successfully," she said, her eyes wide.  
  
He looked at her in shock. "Do you think very well I even would give a care?" he said, falling back on the ground flat. "Oh, my Kami, you have got to be joking?!"  
  
"Well, um."  
  
"Exactly my point," he said sitting back up.  
  
They both looked at each other for a full minute and then both burst out laughing hysterically.  
  
Trying to breath from the laughter, "When was the last time you ever laughed, Piccolo?" she asked, hoping that he wouldn't get upset over a question like that.  
  
"I don't laugh very much, and when I do, I don't show it and laugh to myself. I'm a very private and quiet kind of guy," he said with a bit of stern voice.  
  
"From the anime, I don't think I ever saw you laugh fully like you just did a bit ago. I have seen you smirk and if the fan really knows it, he or she knows you actually laughed," she said smiling a bit, Piccolo nodding.  
  
Cora got up and looked through her camping pack. "Wow, I totally forgot about these things to eat," she said pulling out some freeze dried food packs and taking out her pan and some water from her canteen. "If you ever go camping, never leave home without these wonderful little packets of food. You just add water and cook it a bit and there you go." She said smiling as she prepared her dinner.  
  
"Is it just me, or do you look like you haven't been eating enough since we meet?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, its me. I don't eat much cause I can handle it most of the time, but when I get hungry, look out," she laughed. She ate there quietly as Piccolo kept looking around the ruined castle. After she was finished, she got out her anti-skip portable CD player and put on some music to dance to. She hooked the player to her belt loop and pushed play and put her earplug set in her ears, she smiled as the music began.  
  
"What are you doing?" he asked as Cora lip sang to the music, she looked up and smiled, turning the music down.  
  
"I have to listen to some music for a little while. Music frees my soul and pumps my blood like a river through my body. I bet you can hear it quit well from there."  
  
"Turn it up and I can hear as good as you are right now with your ear set." He said as she turned it up quit loud for herself and that was enough for Piccolo to hear as if he was hearing it from the stereo itself. He smiled a bit as the music went though his ears. She looked at him a bit and knew he liked it, and then she continued to dance to the music and lip sing to it too. Piccolo sat down and went back to meditating, the music sounding good to him.  
  
Turning it down a bit, "I bet you will be happy to know that in most of my music I brought with me, does not contain any whistling at all."  
  
"That's very good to hear, thank you," he said feeling grateful to know that.  
  
She danced and danced, for what seemed forever. Hearing the music change to different ones on the player, Piccolo gave up and just watched her dance there by the fire. She danced beautifully, as the music went through her body. Soon a slow song came up and she continued to lip sing to it, her body moving to the rhythm as a belly dancer. Her hands were of a temptress of the night and flame and it pleased Piccolo greatly. He had never seen such dancing before and it mesmerized him as he watched. She soon came into a dance move that widened his eyes; she stood one leg straight up from behind her and stood thereon the other leg and slowly bent over, holding the other leg over her shoulder. She out stretched her free hand to the flames, the heat lightly warming and almost burning her, but she quickly whisked her hand the flame let go of it's grasp on her fingers. She looked up at Piccolo, seeing he was amazed to see such movement, she stood back up and untwisted her body and turned off the music and stood there looking at him, smiling.  
  
"You like?" she asked with a smile.  
  
With a blink, "I've never seen anything like that before. How did you do that?"  
  
"With lots of practice, but I'm not that good of a contortionist. If I was really good I would have learned this at a very young age and you would have really seen some movement. In China and India they have many contortionists, they learn at a very young age, about four years old and the training takes years to prefect," she said as she sat down on the other side of the fire across Piccolo. "With your physique, you wouldn't be able to bend like I do or at least try. You have to stretch everyday for the rest of your life to get where I'm at of navies."  
  
"I see and how long have you been working at this art?" he asked as the rain fell harder all around them.  
  
"I started doing this when I was probably thirteen and kept doing it. I learned it on my own by watching TV specials and my mother wasn't too happy that I was doing this to my body, but before she died, about a month before, I showed her what I could do and she was happy."  
  
Clearing his throat, "You haven't told me about your family, does this bother you?"  
  
"No, I'll tell you know, while I'm on the subject," she began as she curled back up in her cloak, Piccolo shivered a bit as the wind blew in from the door and he too go this cloak and put it on. "I thought the cold didn't bother you?"  
  
"It does at times."  
  
"Anyway, I was born in up state New York, in America, my mother was a good woman, but when my father left us when I was born, she got a bit cold and hidden from me. She never told me why he left, but I made up a good reason why and I don't want to mention it." Piccolo nodded as she continued. "When I turned eighteen, my mother and grandfather were killed in a car crash and by that I was left alone to live by myself. I inherited my mother's rich money and my grandfather's house, that's how I knew about the world. In his house he had so many books about all kinds of land on this Earth and about how to live out in the forests of America and all kinds of books about animals and plants. That's how I know mostly everything you ask about. It's good to have me around it's it?" Piccolo nodded, as she put her head down, a tear falling from her eyes. She looked back up at Piccolo as more tears fell from her eyes. "I miss my mother and grandfather so much, but if they could see me now where I'm at, they would be so proud." She said with a sniff, Piccolo saying nothing, but in his eyes she could see that he didn't do well with anyone crying around him. "I'm sorry, I'll stop crying now," she said whipping her tears and calming down.  
  
"It's okay, Cora. Unlike Gohan when I trained him, he cried a few times and seeing a young boy cry isn't good to see. It showed he was weak in some ways and well, in the end he grew up to be a very strong and wise young man. All that training on him did some great good. If I hadn't trained him like I did, there would be no telling what would have happened if Cell would have won. I wouldn't have been here right now talking with you," he said, Cora smiling at him greatly.  
  
Suddenly, Cora doubled over in pain in her side and groaned, as it got worse.  
  
"Are you okay, Cora?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"I'll be fine when I pop a midal down my throat," she said with a moan of pain and crawling to her camping pack. She finally found the pills and took them with water from her canteen. "Being a woman can have its perks and pains that's for sure," she said crawling back to where she sat before.  
  
Piccolo didn't know what to make of it of course, but he knew it was going to probably be explained to him sooner or later. Personally he didn't want to know about it, cause it was her business and not his of course.  
  
"Well, I think we should both get some rest," Piccolo said as he got his black cloak up around him and hooded his face from the wind. Cora nodded as she got out her sleeping bag, taking off her wet clothes and hiking boots and leaving on her still dry wool pants and short-sleeved wool shirt and socks, she climbed into her sleeping bag, zipping it up all the way.  
  
The cold night Russian air was so windy, and rain wet that Cora thought she wouldn't get any sleep. She shivered in her sleeping bag, even with all that wool she wore and thick wool sleeping bag lining; she was still cold for some reason, even if she was fairly close to the fire. Piccolo looked up at the flames and sniffed the air; it had a faint smell of chocolate and blood. He looked at Cora and snickered at her, as the smell got a bit stronger when he looked at her. He couldn't but help staring at her, as she shivered in the sleeping bag. He got up from the cold ground and folded up her cloak as a pillow for her head. As he placed it under her head, he put one hand down on the bag, her body still shivering badly, he slowly pulled back the cover and saw her breathing out air that came to a cold mist. He sighed and being so kind he wrapped himself up in his cloak and slowly unzipped the sleeping bag and slowly curled inside with her. He placed his arms and one leg around her body to warm her shivering. Soon she began to calm down and she seemed to cuddle up against him lovingly. She was out cold asleep and probably had no idea that Piccolo was helping her warm up. He knew that he couldn't let her die no matter what, because she was the only friend he had here on this planet and he needed her help to survive on it.  
  
As Piccolo lay there next to her, he couldn't but help looking at her soft dark brown hair. He lightly touched it, it being soft between his fingers like silk. He sighed softly as he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head. He just laid there, his eyes open and ears open to any sounds outside the castle ruins. A dove had flown in from the cold night and landed up in the rotten rafters in a corner, lightly cooing as it settled down for the night. His heart beating softly as he felt Cora's body moved slightly to turn over on her back. He kept still until she was calm again and wrapped his arms around her once more, sighing to himself.  
  
'What am I doing? I wouldn't be doing this for just any female," he said to himself as he sighed a bit. He then closed his eyes and tried to meditate with curled up with Cora in his arms.  
  
The next morning, the sun shun through the windows as it rose over the mountains, its brightest rays shined through the door onto Cora's face. Piccolo had woken up from his mediating a few hours earlier and waited for her to awaken. He sat near the fire, tending to it to keep the room warm.  
  
Cora opened her eyes and smiled at the rays of sun.  
  
"Good morning, Piccolo," she said turning over to him with a smile, he nodded in reply.  
  
"It's best you dress in warmer clothes. Your shirt and jeans are still lightly damp from last night," he said poking at the fire with a stick.  
  
She smiled and got up from the ground, Piccolo walking out of the room and waited for her up a hill. She quickly got dressed in another pair of wool- lined jeans and a sweater and her hiking boots once again. She stepped outside the entrance of the castle ruins and looked up to a small hill near by. Piccolo was standing there atop the hill looking around, the sun hitting his green skin brightly. She smiled and ran up to him.  
  
"Did you have a good rest?" she asked standing next to him, he nodded to her. "That's good. It sure was cold last night, but I guess my wool I wore kept me warm. It was so strange though; I could swear someone was in my sleeping bag as I slept. But you wouldn't dare now would you?"  
  
Piccolo turned to her with a blank look on his face. "No, of course not."  
  
Cora looked at his face closer and giggled to herself. "You were in my sleeping bag warming me up last night, weren't you? I couldn't have been anything else."  
  
"I hoped you wouldn't notice me there."  
  
"Fat chance, Piccolo, I can sense crystals and other things around me with my eyes closed and hands out. I knew you were there, even thought I was out cold asleep," she said as she looked out over the land. "It sure was nice of you to warm me, if you hadn't I would have gotten ill and we can't have that, now can we?"  
  
"No we sure can't and you are welcome, Cora," he said as he walked back to the castle ruins. "And remember that won't happen all the time. Okay."  
  
"I understand," she said following him back to the castle.  
  
"We should be on our way again to the air," he said putting on his cloak and fixing it to cover his face a bit.  
  
"You bet, I can't wait to get started again," she said smiling as she put her things neatly back into her camping pack and rolled up her sleeping bag and tied it back onto the pack. "Everything's set, Piccolo," she added as she buttoned up her trench coat and put on her gloves.  
  
He put the pack on his back like before and walked out of the castle, Cora following behind. He picked her up once more and they were off into the air back on the same course.  
  
"Now, let's hope that we have a nice flight, unlike yesterday," she smirked, Piccolo nodding as he flew faster over the land. "It shouldn't take very long for use to reach Moscow, Russia now, maybe a few more hours at least or less."  
  
An hour or so later, Piccolo landed a few miles from the boarder of Moscow. He placed Cora on the ground as he looked around.  
  
"Now Piccolo, you will have to stay close to me while we are in Moscow. The city can be dangerous and with the way you are, you better stay close," she said, Piccolo nodding his reply as they walked the next few miles into the city. They both kept quiet thinking to themselves as they walked. "Piccolo could you stop for a moment so I can get out my CD player?" Piccolo kneeled on the ground as he took of the pack and put it back on over his cloak this time. She got into the pack and took out her CD player and her Michael Jackson "History" disk 2 to play. She fixed herself up with the music, as they continued to walk. She pushed play and Piccolo could hear the song begin. "You'll get an idea what this song is about."  
  
As the song began, Cora stepped her walk into the beat of the music and smiled. Piccolo looked at her and smiled a bit at the beat of the song. A light whistling was heard on the song, but it didn't bother him. Soon, the title of the song was sung, it being, "Stranger in Moscow".  
  
'Typical,' he said to himself as he enjoyed the song as they walked.  
  
Soon they made it to the outskirts of Moscow, Russia, the sun shinning brightly, a few clouds in the sky. The song set the mood of the city well and it made both of them feel good inside. Cora looked up at him and could see a bit through the vale, he was lip singing to the song, she giggled, he hearing this and he stopped.  
  
"No, keep doing what you feel, it's okay," she smiled. "At least the some whistling isn't bothering you." She pushed play on the same song again as they came into the city.  
  
The old buildings along the roadside looked dirty gray, but to Cora they were beautiful. Some streets lined with brick and stone, a horse drawn carriage moving by them, the sound of the horse's hooves seeming to move in the beat of the song. She turned the music off and took out the earplugs.  
  
"Why don't we get a horse carriage ride tour of the city? It will be much safer that way," she suggested.  
  
"Sure why not. I hope you have the money for it."  
  
"I'll have to exchange my American money for Russian ruble," she said looking for a money exchange. A little ways down the main street they came upon had a money exchange on it. "Wait right here outside and don't act odd to them okay. Make sure you back are to the wall. It won't be long," she said as she went into the building.  
  
She came back out with $500 dollars in Russian ruble. She turned to her left to see Piccolo leaned up against the wall, his vale off and only showing his eyes.  
  
"Now I have to find an English speaking Russian for a tour," she said as a man walked up to her.  
  
"You looking for English tour of Russia?" he asked in a Russian accent, she nodded. "Come, let me show you." Not long the man showed them a building that read in Russian, Tour of Moscow. Cora thanked the man and they both walked in the building. Cora paid for each other for the tickets and was soon in a horse carriage to start the tour. Piccolo took the pack off and put next to him as the carriage moved a bit.  
  
"Sir, do you speak English well?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, mame, I do. You are lucky, most of our English speaking tour guides are on holiday," he said looking back at Piccolo. "Is your friend going to wear that hood the whole time on the tour?"  
  
"I guess so," she said, getting out her camera. She bent over to Piccolo and whispered to him. "Don't worry about him. If he gives me any trouble, I'll take care of it." Piccolo nodded as he looked around.  
  
The guide pointed out everything in Moscow and told about its history as Cora took pictures of what buildings and the people she wanted. Soon they came upon the Red Square of what Cora told him of what she could of it, but with all her explaining, it didn't compare to the size and beauty of the main building. It was the Cathedral of The Red Square that Piccolo set eyes on.  
  
"Is that what you were telling me about?" Piccolo asked, mouth gapping as he stared at its colors and stonework.  
  
"Yes, that's what I was trying to tell you, but couldn't. Isn't it beautiful?" Piccolo could only nod his head as the carriage halted to a stop, Cora getting out and taking a few pictures. She ran back to the carriage, "Hey, do you think it will be okay that I call you by your real name here or even anywhere?"  
  
"Sure, I don't think anyone would care to notice."  
  
"Good, so come out here and we'll get a picture of us next to the Cathedral," she said handing the camera to the guide. Piccolo lowered the fabric of his cloak down a bit so his face could be seen a bit more, but not too much as to make the people aware. The guide took the picture and they were on their way for the rest of the tour.  
  
They saw the Peterhov Palace, Peter The Great statue, the Alexander Pushkin statue, Nicholas I statue, the Pantheon building, the Catharine's Palace, and Smolny Cathedral and many more wonderful things.  
  
"Where can we find almost the most expensive place for the night?" she asked, the guide looking back in surprise. "Don't worry I can afford it."  
  
"I'll take you there," he said as he turned the carriage around back through the city, the richest part of it. After a few blocks, the carriage came a stop and Cora stepped out of the carriage, Piccolo following with the camping pack in his hands after her. "This is the best place I can think of it you can afford it, Miss."  
  
"It's perfect, thank you so much," she said turning to give the guide a nice tip for his very well done tour of Moscow. "Well, we'd better get a room. It's not good to camp out in this kind of cold country in the woods. You have no idea how bad the winters can get here," she added as Piccolo walked in with her into the lobby. Cora ran up to the front desk to start getting the key to a room, a very good room at that. A few minutes later Cora came back with the hotel room key.  
  
"What kind of room did you get?" Piccolo asked as he followed her onto an elevator, Cora then pushed the sixth floor button going up. The elevator started going up and Piccolo just about fell to the floor. He braced himself up against the wall, his eyes wide with some bit of fear.  
  
"You've never been on an elevator have you?" she said, Piccolo shaking his head. "We'll be up in the room soon. Don't worry, these elevators are safe."  
  
The sixth floor finally came and the doors opened as Piccolo quickly walked out of the elevator.  
  
"Okay, we have room 381," she said as she looked around for room number signs. "Ah, there, we go this way." She said as she counted the room numbers. "Here we are, room 381." On the door it read in Russian and in English, honeymoon suit 1. She opened the door and turned around to see Piccolo's face with a total disgusted look. "Hey, I can afford this and well, we can both truly relax for once. It's got a hot tub and a bar," she said smiling. "Get in here."  
  
Piccolo walked in shaking his head. "I almost can't believe you."  
  
"I can't believe me either," she said smiling as she took off her trench coat and threw it to the bed.  
  
Piccolo closed the door behind him and put the camping pack on the large dinning table on the other side of the room.  
  
"Tell me, why in the hell did you choose such a room?" he asked looking around.  
  
"I've always wanted to be in one of these rooms even though I'm not married, nor will I ever be. Room service will be around very soon to take any orders, and such I'm the only one eating, that means more for me," she said grinning her little head off, Piccolo just shook his head and sat in a chair.  
  
Soon someone came up to the room door and knocked.  
  
"I'll get that, of course," she said running to the door and opening it a crack.  
  
"Madam, I'm here to give you the hotel chef's menu. Everything is inside that you would find appetizing." Cora took the menu and thanked the man and gave him a small tip.  
  
"Oooo.I can't wait to pig out!" she said, closing the door and locking it. She ran to the bed and jumped on it, lying down on her stomach as she looked through the English readable menu.  
  
"If you start eating like a Saiya-jin, I'm leaving the room to yourself."  
  
"That would not be wise, my green friend," she said as she looked at him from head to toe. "Aren't you going to take that heavy cloak off?" Piccolo smirked at her and took the dark cloak and his gloves off and hung it up on a rack the best he could. Suddenly, the clothes rack snapped and came falling to the ground with a crash. "I don't think you'll be doing that again and looks like I can't hang up my stuff now. Oh well," she said turning back to her menu and drooling as she read what kinds of foods they had.  
  
"I think I'll just take a bath before my brunch," she said as she got off the bed, Piccolo got up and found a clean corner to meditate in, quit far away from the sound of the bathroom. She pulled the window curtains closed in the main room and got out some clean clothes and her music CD collection after she caught eye of a stereo in the bathroom. She walked into the bathroom and closed the door after her. She then turned on her music about five CDs inside it and started with the Tomb Raider soundtrack and pushed track 13 and began to draw her bath. As the water filled the tub, she lit some candles that were in the bathroom and around the tub. The bubbles filled fast as she finished lighting the few candles. She took off her clothing, it falling to the floor slowly it seemed, her soft body shinned in the candle light as she turned off the main lights and stepped into the tub. The water was warm, as she felt her body soften up and finally relax. "Oh this feels so good," she said as she turned off the water and turned on the spa part to the tub. 'I think this tub is big enough for Piccolo and I together,' she thought to herself giggling and making sure to block her thought of passion about Piccolo from him.  
  
Piccolo could hear through his mind of Cora's music, it calming him greatly as he continued to meditate in full peace, at least he hoped it would be a peaceful meditating evening. He soon levitated up in the air a few feet off the sand colored carpet, his shoulders not as tight as he would usually have them when he meditated, his arms crossed like always.  
  
She turned to the next song by the stereo remote and as it played she sank further into the hot bubbling bath of the spa. The bathroom was fairly large, a shower room big enough for two people, a spa/bath tub big enough for two, the whole room being colored in a light tan, desert like brown. Two white bathrobes hung at the back of the door, and a list of what the hotel offered for comfort in its spa room. After an hour or so, Cora stepped out of the bath and dried off. She put on one of the white bathrobes and opened the door to find where Piccolo had gone. She found him sitting, or more a less levitating above the floor in the corner of the main living room area of the hotel room. She stepped out of the door way and quietly, oh so quietly tip toed over to Piccolo, the music now playing peaceful, soft ocean music as she sat in front of him, cross legged, her arms down resting on her lap as she closed her eyes and began to meditate with him.  
  
Her mind was open to him at anytime to step inside and if he did so, she didn't mind what he found from within. The music surrounded both their bodies in pure bliss of peace, until that peace was sad fully broken by Cora's growling stomach. Piccolo so deep in his meditating he didn't hear her growling stomach. She quietly got up to get dressed, she put on some sweat pants and a sweatshirt with cotton socks, she then dilled up the front desk to take down her order of food for the evening.  
  
"I'll have a pound of king crab legs, steamed with butter," she began as she kept her eye on Piccolo making sure he didn't awaken from his deep meditation. She whispered to the man on the phone, "I'll also have three pounds of breaded popcorn shrimp, a pound of scallops, a fairly large bowl of cocktail shrimp, topped off with one slice of cheesecake with cherries on top and a pitcher of sweetened ice tea, please," she said to the man as he wrote everything down.  
  
"Madam, don't mind me by asking, but why are you whispering on the phone?" the deskman asked.  
  
She looked over at Piccolo and her eyes went wide as the cruelest thought came across her mind, she smiled and said it with great delight, but still in a whisper. "My husband is resting in the bed at this moment and I don't want to." she said as she saw Piccolo get up from his seated position, his eyes glaring, but wide with question and annoyance all over his face. "Wake him," she finished finally.  
  
"Will that be all then?" the man asked.  
  
"Yes, that will be just fine, send the bill up with the meal please," she said with a light chuckle, as she hung up the phone. She looked at Piccolo trying not to laugh so hard, she covered her mouth, laughter trying to escape from her mouth. She put her hands down and opened her mouth to speak, but Piccolo stopped her before she could.  
  
Putting his hand up in front of her face, "I really don't want to know," he said finally with a grunt of disgust, he turned around and took the camping pack off the dinning table and sat down in one of the chairs, staring at Cora.  
  
Cora hung her head in apology, "I have to have some fun, and I can't help it if I have a fun loving mind."  
  
"A sick one at that," he added.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I saw the thought you had when you were in the tub. I could even slightly hear you giggling at the thought," he said glaring harshly.  
  
"Well, excuse me for having fun on this trip, Mr. Scrooge!"  
  
Piccolo's right ear twitched as he heard the Enigma CD start to play, hearing a woman slightly breathing heavy as if she was into a sexual act.  
  
"You can turn that off now."  
  
"I'll turn it down, but not off. After getting you mad and me feeling if, I have to calm down some how and this is how I do it."  
  
"You listen to people moaning?"  
  
"Not exactly, but that's part of the music of Enigma. Sex, love, meditation, peace, and music of nature with some techno sound, is what they create in their form of music and I love it. You'd have to admit, you really enjoyed the music of that Oceans CD, I could see if all over your face and that's in a way of how their music is. And just to let you know, if you trash my CDs out of anger, so help me I'm going to kill you for it and you'll have to buy me all my CDs again during this whole trip!" she said turning the music down, enough for herself to hear.  
  
"Okay, let me get this straight. If I destroy your music collection, you'll kill me and then I have to buy you the new ones? Hey, won't I be dead, where I wouldn't be able to buy them?" he snapped with a slight grin and chuckle to himself.  
  
Cora stood there flabbergasted and suckered into her own words of silliness.  
  
"You catch on too quick, Piccolo," she said pointing a finger at him and winking. Piccolo grinned widely at her, he felt proud to have made her feel like a fool for the first time during the trip.  
  
Soon a knock was heard at the door.  
  
"That must be my feast," she said as she opened the door, Piccolo moving out of view. "Thank you." She said as she rolled the large wheeled tray into the room and over to the dinning table. She went back and closed and locked the door.  
  
"What did you get?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"Almost anything and everything that a seafood lover could ever want," she said, putting out the silver covered trays of food onto the table. She opened one of them and saw it to have a nice filet of salmon and note next to it. It read,  
  
'Madam, such you had ordered our best seafood for the evening, we have given you a free filet of salmon to go with it. Enjoy.' Signed the kitchen staff.  
  
"Wow, I'm in heaven now. Look out Piccolo, it's going to get messy."  
  
"I think that's my Q to get out of here, or at least relax in that spa, while you pig out," he said as he looked in the bathroom.  
  
"You've taken baths before?" she said with one eyebrow up.  
  
"What the hell do you think? I don't very much, but when I do, it's worth it. While I was out in the forests of China, I came across this waterfall that had a fairly large pool at the bottom."  
  
"Well, in that case, I'll get your gi washed with my other dirty clothes, while you're in the bathtub. It won't take long for me to call up a maid to take them down for me," she said as she started to take out her dirty clothes from her camping pack, it being a full load, especially with Piccolo's gi outfit and his soft fabric boots.  
  
Piccolo closed the bathroom door slightly and took off his gi outfit and boots and threw them to Cora. She held his gi outfit up and with one smell of it, she just about passed out.  
  
"When was the last damn time you washed this thing? Wait, don't answer that."  
  
"I'll keep the music going," he said as he turned on the water.  
  
"I told you would like my kind of music. It's already programmed as to what I wanted to hear, so it will just play all the songs over and over until you push stop," she said as she pilled the clothes near the door. A knock at the door and it was the maid ready to take the clothes. Opening the door, "There you go, miss. It's not much but please don't lose any of our stuff, especially this," she pointed to Piccolo's gi outfit. The maid nodded and put the clothes in a basket and went on her way. Cora closed the door and locked it again, as she turned to the slightly opened bathroom door.  
  
She slowly crept up to the door hinges and peered inside.  
  
"Ha! Caught ya!" Piccolo yelled, as he threw a pillow at her. Cora jumped about four feet straight up into the air, screaming as she did and turned around. Piccolo was standing next to a wall; he had a towel tied around his waist. "You know, you won't last long with me around if you jump like that from the slightest snick up," he said with a chuckled as he walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.  
  
"That was so mean!" she yelled at him, hitting the bathroom door with one fist.  
  
"Yeah, but it was sweet revenge after what you said on the phone to that man."  
  
She huphed and went to her feast and ate like a pig as she cracked the first king crab leg.  
  
After the tub was filled, Piccolo turned the water off and quickly figured out how to work the spa. The bubbles and water jets soothed his body all around; he had never felt such luxury and pleasure before. He sighed slowly as he sank deeper into the spa tub, luckily it was big enough for an almost seven foot man. The music soothed his ears as he turned down the light in the room, he laying back and closing his eyes. He could slightly hear Cora eating her feast, hearing her crack the crab legs and putting the rest of the food down her throat.  
  
'She better not get sick,' Piccolo thought, suddenly a very loud belch came from the dinning area of the room. He opened his eyes wide and felt sick to his stomach. 'She better not be a Saiya-jin,' he thought.  
  
"Sorry about that Piccolo," Cora called out as she kept eating.  
  
After a few hours, Cora had finished her dinner and Piccolo got out of his bath and began to dry off. Cora had eaten almost everything in sight that she ordered, only some popcorn shrimp, some scallops; some cocktail shrimp were left on the plates. She scrapped all that was left of the foods to one large plate and covered it with the silver cover and placed the rest of the dishes on the rolling tray. She wheeled it outside the door, seeing a waiter walking down the hall. The man stopped and rolled the tray to the kitchen with the bill paid in full with it and a bit of a tip.  
  
"By the way, how much was all that food?" Piccolo asked still drying off with a towel.  
  
Closing the door, "About $300 rubles," she replied, Piccolo sticking his head out from the bathroom in amazement. "That actually is pretty cheep from what I have heard. France is much more expensive, trust me," she added as she sat on the king size bed. "Now we have to wait for our clothes to get back, it shouldn't be long now." Just then, a knock was heard at the door and sure enough it was the maid back with their clothes all cleaned and folded nicely. Cora knocked on the bathroom door, holding Piccolo's clothes. "Your clothes are here," she said as Piccolo opened the door a bit, grabbing the clothes and closing the door quickly. "Aw, fooey!" she said snapping her fingers.  
  
"What are you, drunk?" he added.  
  
"No."  
  
"Why do you want to see my naked body then?"  
  
"Oh, come on, you don't think one of your fans would like to know a few things about your body? I would love to see it in all its beautiful glory."  
  
"Not on your life, woman!"  
  
Cora laughed as she put her clothes in her camping pack. Piccolo came out fully dressed in his now clean gi outfit and soft leather boots.  
  
"Feel better?" she asked, with a light smile, Piccolo nodding as he sat down at the dinning table.  
  
He looked at what was left of the food and smiled, "At least you don't eat like a Saiya-jin. If you had, there would be no leftovers."  
  
"I know that, and if I did eat like those pigs you wouldn't have liked it at all," she said holding her stomach as she sat on the bed.  
  
"Now, don't you dare get sick on me okay."  
  
"I won't. My stomach can handle just about anything I put in it," she said with a groan as she laid down slowly. "I think I'll start taking my slumber right now." She said getting back up to get fixed up for bed. "By the way, how is that you are able to speak such good English, when I mainly know you to speak Japanese only?"  
  
He pondered this for a moment, "I really don't know, but my guess is, that the wish Dende made on the Dragon Balls when I was taken to Earth, the magic from the Eternal Dragon granted me to speak English. That's the only thing I can think of."  
  
"That sounds about right on my side of things. Well, it's good that you can speak Japanese and English. Maybe you could teach me some Japanese, better than what I've learned on my own," she added, Piccolo shrugging his shoulders.  
  
She went into the bathroom and then returned soon after and crawled into bed.  
  
"Where are we going next, Cora?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"I guess we could go to Finland or Sweden? Pick one."  
  
"Sweden."  
  
She grabbed her map and opened it up to the European side. "Well, we have to start going towards Finland first, then Sweden. We'll, talk about this later tomorrow, but are you finished with seeing Russia?"  
  
"Are you?"  
  
"Yeah, I've taken all my pictures I've ever wanted of Russia."  
  
"Very well then," he replied as he got up to sit in his corner again to meditate. Cora turned off the lights in the room, leaving one light on in the bathroom, lightly turned down not to be so bright. She curled up into the bed and laid there listening to the rain lightly falling on the hotel roof. After a while, she slowly drifted off to sleep.  
  
Late into the night, about two in the morning, Piccolo awake from his meditation, he got up and looked outside the room window. The night sky was cloudy and rain pounded against the windows and roofs of the hotel, and the window was very cold to the touch. He closed the curtains and turned to look at Cora. She was covered up warmly underneath the thick comforter blanket and sheets; her long wavy brown hair lay softly on the pillow. Piccolo bent down to her face, sighing as he lightly touched her soft cheek with his hand.  
  
'She may be a bit annoying at times, but she is fun to be with,' he said in his mind. 'What am I doing? I don't have any feeling for her, only that she is a friend and nothing more. Why does my heart feel this way?' He backed away and turned around, facing the mirror; he could see the reflection of her face. He turned back around to face her and just stood they're watching her sleep; she even snored a bit, but not very loudly. She turned over on her stomach, Piccolo keeping still like a stone statue, making sure she did not wake. 'Why do I feel this way?' he asked himself, the words of that question pounding at his mind. He finally moved slowly to sit in a chair; there he waited for her to awaken in the morning. He just kept his eyes on her all through the rest of the night, sighing softly every once and a while to himself as he looked longingly at her soft beauty.  
  
The morning sun shinned brightly; it's golden rays shinning through the window, as Piccolo slowly opened the curtains up. Cora turned over towards the sun, her eyes squinting a bit from the brightness. She covered her eyes and whipped them as she slowly sat up.  
  
With a yawn, "Good morning, Piccolo."  
  
Piccolo just stood there by the window looking out over the city of Moscow and the morning sun, his thoughts racing. 'I love it when you say that to me every morning,' he said in his mind, making sure Cora didn't hear it from within her own mind. He lightly smiled as he turned to look at her, she sitting up in the bed stretching.  
  
"For you to smile like that, so calmly and gently, so gentle in fact your smile being as soft as a baby's touch, the morning sun must really be a wonderful sight for you to see," she said getting up to stand next to him at the window to look at the morning.  
  
He lightly nodded, 'You have no idea, Cora, you have no idea,' he said to himself.  
  
"Well, may our travel to Finland be a good one," she said patting Piccolo on the shoulder and then turning to put her tennis shoes on, Piccolo flinched a bit from her touching him.  
  
"Where are you off to?"  
  
"I'm hungry for breakfast and I think I'll go take a little jog around their indoor running track before I eat. I am a bit out of shape and I need to keep up." She said as she took her CD player and the Batman Forever soundtrack CD. "You might as well stay here, if you leave, I hope no one notices you."  
  
"If I leave to find you for anything, I'll be hidden by the cloak and you know it."  
  
"Okay then, well I'm off. I'll be back in an hour I guess," she said taking one of the hotel keys with her and closing the door after. She stretched a bit outside the room and then jogged her way to the hotel gym for her morning work out.  
  
Once she got there she showed the gym manager her pass and started to jog around the indoor track. Piccolo didn't stay long in the hotel room by himself, and got dressed to find Cora and watch her work out. He was dressed in his cloak of course, but he made it look less strange to everyone there by showing his face a bit more than usual, but no one noticed nor cared to notice him. He finally found her on the track running slowly at first, but soon she stepped up her pace. She looked up as she passed the bend in the track and waved to Piccolo who was watching her from above from the top floor. He nodded to her as she passed by.  
  
After a few more laps on the track, Cora went to the free weights. She cracked her neck twice and knuckles and picked up thirty-pound free weights in each hand and started to do curls. Soon she found herself sweating greatly, she put the weights down and took off her sweat shirt, wearing underneath a tight work out small top, it showing off her six pack on her stomach. Piccolo took a double take look at her six-pack and the form of her muscles of her arms and back, he couldn't believe how strong she looked and wondered how much she could lift and press only for a human. She then took off her sweat pants, underneath a pair of black jean shorts. Her bare legs full of muscle but not too much to over do her true natural beauty. Piccolo seeing this, again wondered how much she could press. He could only watch her, knowing that if he worked out, he would have to have a lot more weights than these normal humans had, it being in the range of tons not pounds like these beings only had. He couldn't even run the track, it being too small for him, he needing the wide open spaces of a field out stretched before him. So he got a chair and sat in the gym watching Cora work out.  
  
She did about fifty curls before going to forty pound weights in each hand. After the free weights she went to leg pressing weights, she fixed the weight to sixty pounds, turned off her music and began. Piccolo got up to go watch her.  
  
"Hey, Piccolo," she said with a breath as she pressed slowly not to over work herself.  
  
"How much can you can you leg press?"  
  
"When I've really trained good, I can press maybe a full hundred pounds, but usually I can press about sixty or a bit more. For me today, this is a light work out, you should see me really work out seriously. Maybe sometime you will," she replied as she pressed her legs onward with the weights.  
  
"How much can you lift?"  
  
"Not much, about maybe fifty if I'm really in the mood, but I usually lift thirty or forty."  
  
Piccolo nodded, "You can only dream at how much I can lift," he said with a wink. Cora smiled as she remembered from the anime on how much tons he can lift.  
  
After a few more leg presses she went to bench pressing, laying down on the bench. She set the weight to fifty and began. She took one press and got up again, to reset the weight to hundred and thirty pounds and began again.  
  
"How for a woman like yourself, you sure can work out pretty good," he commented.  
  
Saying with a breath, "Yeah, I can when I'm up to it." She put the weight down and looked in the mirror, a gym trainer came up from behind Piccolo.  
  
Tapping at his shoulder, "Sir, if you aren't going to work out, I must ask you to set outside."  
  
"Excuse me, sir," she said standing up in front of the man. "I asked him to watch me and I would like for him to watch and just in case something happens to me, he'll be my sparing partner."  
  
"Okay, but not for long, that long cloak could get caught in the machines."  
  
"I understand," Piccolo replied as the gym trainer walked away.  
  
"I won't be much longer, Piccolo," she said taking to the track once more, she turned on her music and ran much faster this time around it. Piccolo sat back down in a chair and watched her pass him many times.  
  
'She's fast too,' he thought as Cora passed him again for the fifth time around. 'Maybe once we get started on the road again, and we find a safe hidden place I could work out a bit myself,' he said to himself as he flexed his arm muscle a bit, it feeling like it needed it.  
  
Cora soon slowed down and jogged over to Piccolo, out of breath, "Okay, I think I can eat a horse now," she said Piccolo's eyes going wide. "I'm only kidding, it's a saying, don't worry, I won't eat a horse," she said chuckling a bit as she walked out of the gym with Piccolo by her side.  
  
Once they got back to the hotel, Cora headed for the shower. She soon came out a few minutes later with just a towel around her body, her hair wet, and the bathroom stereo playing some really good music.  
  
"What music is this?" Piccolo asked as he sat down at the dinning table.  
  
"It's the Labyrinth soundtrack. Maybe sometime we'll watch that movie together," she replied as she began to towel dry her hair with another towel, Piccolo shrugged and had finally noticed she was just wearing a towel.  
  
"Do you have to just wear that around me? Get something on, woman!" he cried out, turning his gaze to another part of the room away from Cora.  
  
She looked up and laughed, "Why should I? You were in the tub last night and when you were about to get in, you came out only wearing a towel around you waist, so nah," she said sticking out her tongue.  
  
Piccolo twitched his eye a bit, noticing he has been suckered.  
  
"Ha, I got you this time, Piccolo. That means we are even on picking on each other. So you can't say anything about it," she said sticking out her tongue again and laughing.  
  
"Just hurry up and get dressed."  
  
"Not until I finish my breakfast, so you will just have to cool it for a while," she said dialing the front desk phone number and ordering her breakfast.  
  
After eating, she finally got dressed in some black jeans, dark green sweatshirt, and hiking boots. Soon they gathered their things and were checking out of the hotel and back onto the road of their travels.  
  
Out on a dirt road out away from the cities and towns going north, Cora and Piccolo found their traveling very easy in the morning. The birds were singing and other small animals were doing their daily foraging for food. Cora stopped walking a bit, Piccolo turned around and looked at her oddly. She bent down and a few feet in front of her was a gray squirrel, she took out some bread from her breakfast she had left and put it in her finger tips for the squirrel to take. After a little bit of squeaking and chirping sounds to the creature, it came over to her and took the food quickly. The squirrel ran over to a tree to eat it, but was suddenly stopped by a sound it had heard. It dropped the food and ran up the nearest tree, by that time Piccolo's ears twitched, hearing the light footsteps of two heavy broad men coming up from behind them.  
  
"Cora, when I tell you to run, run. I'll take care of these two guys," Piccolo suggested.  
  
"No, I'm not going to let you do that. We both can't risk it of what and who you are. I'll take care of them, you noticed how strong I am, so let me," she pleaded.  
  
"Okay, but if you need me I'll be up in the trees a few feet away," he said as he ran up a steep embankment and climbed a very large tree and hide himself from view of the approaching men. Cora slowly stood up as the men came close up from behind her.  
  
"I thought you had a friend with you?" one of the men asked, as he cracked his knuckles.  
  
"He had to leave, I only traveled with him for a short time," she said turning around to face the two men.  
  
"Well, we wanted to ask him a few things of where he came from. He seems to always wear that cloak around you or wherever he goes," the other man said as he too cracked his knuckles.  
  
"You don't know him at all, nor do you care. Are you two gentlemen drunk this morning or just got up on the wrong side of the bed?" she asked, glaring at them.  
  
"No, but it looks like you'll have to do, such your bodyguard isn't around anymore," one of the men said as he took a right hooked swing at Cora, she dodging it and high kicked him right square in the caller bone, breaking it instantly, causing the man to fall to his knees holding his throat.  
  
"You want some of this?" she said finally slowly putting her leg down from the high kick.  
  
With no answer the other man charged her, forcing her up off the ground, hitting an oak tree. The tree slightly cracking after she hit it hard, she slowly opened her eyes, glaring at the broad man that was pinning her to the tree. With his free hand he clutched his fist and just as he was about to punch her, Piccolo stood behind him. Piccolo took one punch to the man's back, hearing it crack as he let go of Cora from the tree. He groaned and screamed in pain as he fell to his knees. With the man down on the ground, Cora motioned for Piccolo to move out of her way, as she football kicked the man across the path to another tree, hitting it hard and knocking him out for the count. The other man that was still riving in pain over that one high kick to the caller bone, Cora knelt down before the guy and pull his face up to her view by the hair on his head.  
  
"Now, tell me why the hell did you follow us really?" Cora asked, glaring at the man angrily.  
  
"We just didn't like the way he looked hanging around Moscow like that and some of the people wanted him out of the city."  
  
"Yeah, right, I would have heard about it. But aren't you the two guys from the gym this morning?" she said to him, the man grunting out a yes. With that, she dropped his head and with a swift blow right punch to his jaw the man hit the ground out cold.  
  
"Let's go, Cora, before anyone else shows up," Piccolo suggested taking her by the arm and flying away. He flew very high into the sky, far enough were no one could see them. Once he got high enough he gathered Cora in his arms and floated there for a while. "Did those guys hurt you?"  
  
"No, not really, but my back does hurt a bit, but not as bad as you think and when I bet those guys up a bit, it didn't hurt me at all, but probably that last punch was something else. That guy has a hard jaw to break," she said holding her right hand.  
  
Holding Cora with his arm wrapped around her waist, Piccolo searched in his pocket for a sinsu bean. "Here, take this and don't argue with me okay," he said in a demanding deep voice as he put the bean in her mouth, she chewed it and swallowed, a few seconds later she felt much better.  
  
"Wow, I thought those beans wouldn't work here on this Earth. Those things are amazing," she said, her eyes shinning with life again.  
  
"I only have five left, they will have to last us quit a while," he said looking in his pouch.  
  
"I think it will be much safer if we fly a good ways away from the main city, we need to get to the mountains," she said as Piccolo gathered her up in his arms and flew north to find a safe place to land.  
  
A few hours later, Piccolo landed in a meadow and let Cora down on the ground. The meadow had some patches of snow on it, the grass brown, and the leaves on the trees turning to the autumn colors.  
  
"I've never seen trees like these before," Piccolo said as he looked around.  
  
"They're turning to the season of fall. All over the northern hemisphere this kind of changing is happening as we speak and soon it will snow greatly," she added, as she picked an orange maple leaf from the tree, she put it in her hair and smiled softly at Piccolo. "Whenever I put nature in my hair, I feel closer to the Earth than any way else possible."  
  
"Shall we go then?"  
  
"My, you are in a rush today. Why hurry?"  
  
"I'm just wanting to see more of this Earth and I want to get to the next country."  
  
She smiled and walked up to him. "You're just like a school boy, wanting to be the smartest kid in geography class and I wasn't very good at it either."  
  
The two of them walked for hours it seemed, but such Piccolo had flown so far after the attack, it wouldn't take them long to reach the Gulf of Finland. There they would probably fly over the gulf in the middle of the night.  
  
As the day came to be the late afternoon, the wind picked up a bit of a colder feel to it, clouds flowing in from the artic north of Russia. Piccolo put Cora's pack down off his back, as she went through it to find her trench coat and black leather gloves, she put them on and they were on their way once again.  
  
She checked her pockets and found an energy bar. "Oh, glad to find this," she said as she opened the bar and started to eat it. Piccolo stopped a few feet behind her; she turned around and found him just standing there with his eyes closed. She looked around the forest, her ears at their peak of hearing ability. "What is it, Piccolo? What do you hear or sense?" she asked whispering to him.  
  
"I was just listening to what's around me, that's all. There isn't anything for you to worry about, Cora," he said, Cora nodding her reply as she looked around her, scanning the forest for anything interesting. Deep in the forest, as far as she could see, she suddenly saw a very large bush of blueberries. "Hey, look what I found," she said running to the bush, Piccolo looked up and walked over to her.  
  
"What are they?" he asked picking one of the berries from the bush.  
  
"There blueberries, big and plump ones too," she said her eyes wide with glee as she picked and ate as many as she could. "Try one, they're very sweet," she said with her mouth full. Piccolo looked at her with a disgusted look on his face as he watched her eat so many. After a while she was full, she took one look at her energy bar and put it back in her pocket. "That was worth it, I haven't eaten so many blueberries in my life and fresh wild one too. Aren't you going to try one at least?" she said to him, as he finally put a few in his mouth and ate them. "So, what do you think?"  
  
"They are pretty good, but you know me."  
  
"I know, you don't need to eat anything, but for a few times you will. Every time I see you just drinking water and nothing else makes me think you aren't healthy, but then again, you actually are," she said before Piccolo could fully speak.  
  
"Alright, if you are that concerned and I will tell you this, the Namek race did consume food before what we did to our planet of that great war and such this isn't Planet Namek, I will eat some things, as long as you know I will like it."  
  
"And only if you are really up to trying something new. Agreed?" she said both of them shaking hands on the deal. "Now that you've seen and tasted blueberries, what else would you like to learn of this forest?"  
  
"What kinds of trees are mostly in this place?"  
  
She looked around to figured out what trees were what and finally answered him. "That's an aspen," she said pointing to it. "In Aspen, Colorado of America, they have tons of them around and in France too. These are pines, and these are furr pines. Well, that looks like that's about it up here in this area." Piccolo listened to her every word, he felt pleased to learn new things, just what Dende said to him when he made the wish.  
  
For the rest of the time of the afternoon, they kept quiet, walking side by side through the Russian forest, Cora explaining more of the animal kingdom of this area and its planets and trees. Finally, after a long days trek across the forest up close to the Gulf of Finland, it had finally gotten dark once more.  
  
While Cora was out looking for some eatable mushrooms by what was left of the sunset, she came across an old cottage close to the shore. She checked it out the best she could before returning back to where Piccolo was waiting for her, sitting calmly in a bit of a meditative state.  
  
"Piccolo, come see what I found," she called out a few feet away from him and the cottage. "Its dry enough for the night, I hope, unless it doesn't ran, but I think it will."  
  
Piccolo checked the house even more closely than what she didn't see he had found some holes in the roof of where a bedroom had been. He quickly got some straw and long sticks and found some wooden boards and nailed them over the holes in the roof.  
  
"I didn't know you could fix up a house?"  
  
"I can, after what I saw what happened to Master Roshie's house a few times from Gokou and watched Roshie fix it up," he said as he came off the ladder.  
  
Chuckling, "I know Master Roshie would not have been very happy about it one bit."  
  
"That's for sure," he said as he walked into the cottage lowering his head a bit not to knock it on the doorframe.  
  
"While you were almost finished with the repairs, I fixed up the place inside," she said as she sat at what was left of half a kitchen table with a bench.  
  
The cottage was quit old and smelled a bit like molded wood, but not too bad as to make them sick. The floor in the main room was dry and fresh, with sawdust chips all over it to save heat. The fireplace and chimney were useable, with a hook to hold a pot over a fire to cook food. The windows had been boarded up with wooden boards, the nails from the boards seem very old and if touched, they could have gotten tetanus. The one bedroom, its roof over head now fixed, Cora got up to place her sleeping bag on the floor, and an extra thick blanket next to it just in case and her cloak as a pillow.  
  
"Its nice, of what's left," he commented, snickering at the smell of the cottage.  
  
"Once we get a fire going, maybe the smell won't be so bad or it could even go away," she said as she gathered up what she could find of kiln for the fire, as Piccolo went outside to search for wood. She soon joined him, but she was still looking for the right eatable mushrooms, she put the mushrooms in a basket she found in the cottage.  
  
Cora stopped for a moment and looked out over the sea, the sound of the waves that washed ashore sounded calming to her, her body seems to flow in the feel and sound of the gentle waves. Piccolo looked at her and smiled very softly, as he too heard the sound of the waves. He stepped back inside the cottage and dropped his very large bundle of wood and sticks in a corner near the fireplace. Shaking her head of the peaceful feel she had found, she quickly ran back to cottage and just as she jumped over a rock, she tripped, screaming in pain as she heard a sudden crack of her right ankle. Piccolo walked outside quickly to find Cora on the ground, holding her ankle, tears in her eyes.  
  
"What happened?" he asked, considering he had already figured it out of what happened.  
  
"I sprained my ankle. I think this is the twelfth time this had happened, and I don't need a sinsu bean either, I can heal in three days, it's no problem, I'm used to it," she groaned out in pain, as Piccolo gently picked her up in his arms, carrying the basket of mushrooms with him.  
  
He laid her on the sleeping bag and propped her hurt ankle on his bunched up white cloak, as he slowly untied her shoes and took them off. He came to her right one and very gently, oh so gently took that one off too and her sock to see about the swelling.  
  
"It's nice and purple; blue," he said gently touching it to feel how tender it was with his fingers, Cora wincing in pain.  
  
"Glad it's those colors. It shows that it's only a sprain and not broken, but I've heard that even a broken bone can show a brose and look sprained," she said, suddenly having fear over come her. "No, don't you dare!"  
  
"I have to, and it's the only way for now," he said as he gave her a stick to bite down on. She bit it hard and closed her eyes as Piccolo tested her ankle for any broken bones. He lightly twisted her foot, hearing a pop to it, he then pressed down on the swollen area a bit hard, Cora groaning and with muffled screams of pain. After what seemed forever for Cora in a torture chamber, the test was finished. She opened her eyes and saw him tearing one long strip from the white fabric of his cloak, he slowly began to bandage up her ankle and foot, not too tight as to stop the blood flow, but tight enough to make it secure.  
  
Spitting out the stick, "It's only a sprain, thank Odin."  
  
"Who?" he asked, as he finished up her bandage.  
  
"It's the Norse God of Thunder and nature up here in these parts of the world. He lives on Mount Asgard, a mountain like fortress in Norway. It's not really real, only in mythologies does he live, but I believe he's real as anyone else could be, he's just smart to stay away from humans," she said as she ugusted her potation on the sleeping bag, Piccolo nodding as he sat at her feet.  
  
"Looks like you won't be dancing any tonight, and I don't know how to cook these mushrooms."  
  
"I'll teach you, it's so easy," she said as Piccolo handed her a cutting board and the mushrooms and a knife. Cora sat up, placing the cutting board on her lap and began to cut the white mushrooms. "Now, all you have to do is fill the pot I brought, half way with water, wait until the water is boiling and put the mushrooms in. It should take them thirty minutes to cook," she told him as she did what was told. "Lucky for me I brought with me some powdered milk cream to put in the mushrooms to make it as a soup."  
  
"Do you always bring so much stuff with you?"  
  
"Always, you never know what you might come across out in the forest of what you could eat. I could eat a thick grub in Africa if I wanted to. It's just how you look at things that are eatable and what's not, it takes practice to figure these things out and plenty of errors too."  
  
Soon the water came to a boil and Piccolo put the chopped mushrooms in it to cook, after it was cooked, he dished them out in a bowl for Cora. She put in her powdered cream and stirred it.  
  
"You better hope those are actually eatable."  
  
"I know they are, I've studied all kinds of forest foods and these are eatable and they'll help with my healing too," she said as she took the first bite. "Mmm.this is really good. They're a bit tart, but that's okay with me."  
  
"Those better not make you sick," Piccolo said under his teeth. "For one thing, that sinsu bean I gave you after that fight, you shouldn't have been able to get hurt again so quickly. I guess those beans work differently with you humans on this Earth." Cora shrugged.  
  
She quickly ate her mushroom soup and put what was left in a sealed container and put it near her camping pack. She slowly moved down into her sleeping bag, wincing in pain as she moved downwards. She covered herself up and looked over at Piccolo, who was sitting in the kitchen area in the next room.  
  
"Why don't you come in here?" she asked, Piccolo looked up at her and walked over, sitting down next to her with his black cloak around him.  
  
"I have to tend to the fire you know."  
  
"I know, I'm just wanting you over here for a while," she said looking at how strong his face and hands looked in the firelight, she sighed a bit and just kept looking at him with her green eyes.  
  
Piccolo cocked his head to the side as he looked at her. "I think I've now just noticed you have green eyes. I thought they were blue."  
  
"Nope, they are usually green or a greener shade of blue. My eye color changes with my surroundings and how much light is in the room or even what I wear or what some else is wearing around me," she said smiling softly at him, her eyes sparkling in the firelight that lit the two rooms fairly brightly. She moved down a bit to touch her hurt ankle and before she could, Piccolo stopped her.  
  
"Don't touch it," he said moving over to her feet and flipping the sleeping bag flap over. He then gathered her right foot in his left hand; cradling it gently as his other hand moved slowly an inch above it. He closed his eyes as he moved his hand around her foot and ankle, the heat from his hand that he called upon warmed and soothed her pain slowly away. He kept this up for at least an hour, her foot quit warm and his hand glowing an orange; yellow color around it. He opened his eyes and looked at Cora, who was slowly falling to sleep. He recovered her up with the sleeping bag and zipped it up all the way to keep her warm. He then went back to feed and tend the fire.  
  
The sound of the crashing waves of the Gulf of Finland felt soothing to his ears as he tended the fire with more wood. He then sat back next to Cora, drinking some water from his canteen. He soon found it going empty and went out to refill it with the sea water, he knew he had to boil the water for it to be drinkable, but before he could get to the sea the wind quickly brought with it a large thunderstorm and lots of rain. He flew back to the cottage, fixing his and Cora's canteen to the cottage roof rim to fill up with rainwater. He came back into the cottage just in time, before the rain poured down on top of him. He closed the door, bracing it with something heavy to keep it from opening during the storm.  
  
All through the night he kept the fire going, kept Cora warm and every once and awhile soothing her hurt ankle with his warmed up energy. It didn't seem like much work, but he knew he had to keep the fire going and Cora's pain down of something could go wrong. The rain raged on and on, the wind howling wildly across the rocks of the cliff of where the cottage stood. Cora tossed and turned slowly, but a lot as the wind and rain entered into her mind to form a bad dream. Piccolo sensing this, he came over to her side, putting his hand on her forehead to check for a fever and not finding one, he kept her mind calm by keeping his hand on her forehead. By doing this, he found himself able to tap into her subconscious and find what she was thinking as she slept.  
  
Inside her mind a bit, Piccolo found all the knowledge she had about living out in the woods of this Earth. She was very well taught in these things and it impressed him greatly. Deeper into her mind, he found information about all the Japanese anime characters she knew about. Wanting to know more about this, on his side of things, he went in deeper. Soon he found a list of his British Zodiac sign, Chinese Zodiac sign and other bits of information about himself that he thought only he knew and no one else knew about, but it looked like Cora was truly the only human that knew mostly everything about the Namekian race, or at least as much as she could find. After reading what he could of the list, he left her mind, glad to have not found any nightmares inside as well, her mind now calmed and it was safe to let her sleep alone for the rest of the night. But deep inside of himself, he did not want to leave her side, he longed for something and he wasn't quit sure what it was, but he began to know something that almost wasn't normal for a Namek. He found himself falling in love with Cora, not just on her looks, but how well trained she was and what she knew, and how nice and fun she was to be with.  
  
"I can't fall in love with a female," he said softly.  
  
"Yes you can," Cora said even softer, not knowing what she had said to him in her sleep. He looked at her with wide eyes, and then smiled at her very softly.  
  
"See you in the morning, Cora," he said as he sat next to the fire. He knew he couldn't tell her about how he felt, it just wasn't the right time to say it. 


	5. Winter Winds of Passion

"Ones Quest,  
  
Another's Journey"  
  
Part 5:  
  
"Winter Winds of Passion"  
  
The next morning was quit misty with a fog over the Gulf of Finland and around the cottage. The sun mysteriously rose over the fog mist like clouds, it's golden rays hitting Piccolo's face as he watched it from behind the cottage. The ground was frosted lightly from the cold crisp night and morning air, the frost cracked beneath his booted feet as he walked back to the front of the cottage to see if Cora was awake. He slowly opened the cottage door to find Cora slowly crawling to the fireplace to warm herself.  
  
"Get back into that sleeping bag right now!" Piccolo yelled, Cora jumping at the sound of his loud deep voice.  
  
"I was getting too hot in my sleeping bag and needed to cool off, then I got cold and saw the fire dying. So." she said, her words cut off suddenly.  
  
"So you wanted to catch your death of cold out here, uh?" Piccolo snapped, as he walked over to pick her up like a kitten his hands, he carried her back to her sleeping bag and covered her up a bit. "I'll deal with the fire right now. I had delt with it all last night and you too," he added as he tended the fire, putting the last amount of wood and sticks in it. "With you injured with that ankle, we might have to stay here until it heals, but I could still carry you over the water."  
  
"Yes you could, and I think my ankle feels much better from what you did to it last night."  
  
"I kept heating it with my energy all night long," he said turning to Cora.  
  
"You took care of me all night long?" she said with a bit of shock in her voice.  
  
Piccolo snickered, "I can't let you die you know. You would have done the same to me if I couldn't heal fast enough," he said, Cora nodding to him with a smile.  
  
"Could you pass me the rest of the mushroom soup?" she asked her hand out stretched.  
  
"I'll heat it for you first," he said taking off the top of the container and warming the soup from all sides with his energy, he then passed it to Cora. "Is it warm enough for you?"  
  
"Yes, it's perfect," she said after taking the first bite.  
  
"I put those other white mushrooms in another one of your containers, it's in the front pocket with your energy bars and other foods you have with you."  
  
"Thank you, Piccolo," she said smiling and then chuckling a bit. "Oh, good morning to you," she said in a Swedish or at least a British accent. Piccolo shook his head at her and lightly smiled as he walked out of the cottage.  
  
"The wind has finally died down where we could be on our way now, if you'd like?" he said popping his head back in the cottage looking at Cora, she nodding a yes with her mouth full of the soup. "Fine then, I'll give you time to get ready," he said getting his dark cloak, turban and gloves on, he then stayed out front of the cottage and waited for her to call him.  
  
She quickly finished what was left of her soup and, slowly crawled to her camping pack, putting the container inside and getting a clean pair of socks and underwear on and changed her womanly things. She then slowly stood up, by the help of the wall to support her and put on a clean bra and sweater. She took one little hobbled step back to her sleeping bag and as she fell she screamed out a bit, Piccolo hearing this very quickly dashed into the cottage to catch her before she fully fell to the floor. He held her up by one hand, her left foot holding up her weight of her body as he held her there for a few minutes. She looked up finally and found herself safe in the arms or at least his large hands holding her up. He slowly moved her to her feet, still keeping her balanced by one hand on her shoulder. They stood there saying nothing, but only looked into each others eyes, both standing fairly close to one another.  
  
As they stood staring, Piccolo could feel Cora's heart pounding fast. She wasn't out of breath or anything, but it just made him aware of her more now. He had never felt such energy from a females heart before, and it didn't beat at the normal speed that it should, it beating a rhythm of passion all its own. He cleared his throat as he broke his gaze from her and helped her over to her sleeping bag. She sat on her knees as she rolled the sleeping bag up tightly; Cora putting the rest of her things in the pack and then sat down and tried to put her hiking boots on. She winced in pain as she slowly put the right boot on and then the next and tied them up. Afterwards Piccolo tied the sleeping bag to the camping pack.  
  
Piccolo put the pack on his back, covered his face with his hood, as Cora put on her cloak and covered herself up.  
  
"Shall we go?" Piccolo asked, as he took the two canteens off from the side of the cottage and handed her canteen to her, she tying the canteen to her belt loop. With his arms out stretched to carry her, she nodded as he gathered her up in his arms again, covering her up better with her cloak and taking to the air.  
  
Both of them kept quiet, thinking to themselves of what Russia had shown both of them to each other.  
  
'Her heart felt so strong as I held her like that. I can't tell her how I feel, damn it! Not yet. I bet she doesn't even remember what she said to me in her sleep. Oh, Kami, I hope she doesn't remember just yet, I think I'd rather tell her, but when?' he thought, his mind racing with many things as he flew across the Gulf of Finland and soon both of them would be in Finland with no problems.  
  
'Oh my heart. How could my heart feel like this for him? I only have a crazy, silly little childish crush for the green guy. If I tell him how I really feel, it might make him mad and he might leave me. He can't leave me, he needs me so much it hurts. Oh, when will this torture end?" she thought, her thoughts running wild in her mind. Both of them knew how to block their thoughts quickly from something like this that pleeged them so deeply.  
  
Cora looked down at the water, her eyes widened as she saw a small family pod of pilot whales diving under, their tails slowly going under and making a bit of a splash.  
  
"Piccolo, stop for a moment and look down there," she said pointing down to the water, Piccolo stopping his flight as he hovered a good two hundred feet above the water. He looked down seeing the great creatures swimming. "Let's get down closer to the water so you can get a better look at those pilot whales," she said as Piccolo slowly lowered himself over the water about three feet above it, the waves slightly splashing on his feet. Suddenly, one of the whales came up for air, its blowhole mist rising over its great body, it startling Piccolo a bit. "Those are pilot whales, they're common here in these kinds of cold waters."  
  
"They're so big," Piccolo added. His eyes wide as he looked at them swimming by.  
  
"Does Chikyuu have whales in their waters?" she asked.  
  
"I'm not sure. I really don't pay attention to what's on Chikyuu, except the enemies and that's about it."  
  
"Okay, just wondering," she replied as Piccolo continued with his flight up high in the sky for the shores of Finland.  
  
After a very short flight, Piccolo and Cora made it almost safely to the shores of Finland. The only thing that stood in their way was a bunch of people out on the shore having a fall festival.  
  
"Now what do you we do?" Cora asked, looking down at the town's people.  
  
Saying nothing, Piccolo disappeared with Cora in his arms and then reappearing somewhere in the middle of Finland in the sky.  
  
"That was cool," Cora commented as Piccolo began to land on the hard cold ground.  
  
"I don't think it would be best to stay here very long. I smell another storm coming up this way," he said as he held Cora in one arm and hand, taking a drink from his canteen with his free one.  
  
"You're right, but I think we need to find a hospital first so I can get my ankle checked," she added, Piccolo nodding and taking to the air again.  
  
After a while of flying way above Helsinki, the capital of Finland, Cora spotted a hospital. Piccolo finding an alleyway to land in, quickly landed and put Cora on her feet. She grabbed a stick and hobbled her way to the hospital.  
  
"I won't be long, Piccolo, just stay right there," she said as she hobbled out of the ally, some towns people seeing her come out, rushed to her aid, the people only speaking in Finnish. She pointed to the hospital and one man carried her to the lobby. Piccolo watched this from the safety of the dark alleyway shadows.  
  
In the hospital, a doctor checked out her ankle, luckily he spoke some good English.  
  
"How long have you been without a proper bandage?" the doctor asked as he took the white cloth of Piccolo's toren cloak off her foot.  
  
"All night long, a friend of mine bandaged it up the best he could," she said wincing in pain a bit as the doctor check the swelling.  
  
"Whatever your friend did to your ankle to help it heal, he did a good job. The ankle of where it was twisted, the swelling seems to have gone down a lot and the twisted muscle is quite warm."  
  
"How long will it take to heal completely where I can walk?" she asked hoping for a good answer.  
  
"If I were you, such you were carried here from some of the citizens of the city, you might as well tell your friend that you will be here for a few days. We need to check up on that ankle, it looks like you really twisted a vane and some nerves and they need to be cared for."  
  
"My friend is busy and he can't make it here for a few days. He's got very important things to work on for his business," she lied to the doctor, knowing that Piccolo was just across the street from the hospital.  
  
"Okay then. Then that means, he'll have to find out later. We'll put you in for free and check you out, the bill shouldn't be that high," the doctor added.  
  
"Don't worry, I can pay for it," she said as she checked her pants pocket, finding that her wallet of money was in her camping pack. "Opps, I left my wallet with everything in it with my friend. Great!" she said rolling her eyes.  
  
"That's okay, just between me and you, I'll be nice and pay for it instead for you."  
  
"Wow, are you sure that will be okay with the hospital?"  
  
"Yes, I've done it before and I've been prassed for it," he said as he opened up a wheel chair for her to sit in, she sat down as the doctor wheeled her to x-ray room.  
  
"What date is it?" she asked.  
  
Checking the calendar on the wall as he passed a bulletin board. "It's November 20th on a Tuesday."  
  
"Okay, thanks."  
  
After the x-ray check, the doctor found no broken bones, only the usual twisted muscle and some nerves of the sprained ankle.  
  
"Well, you've checked out pretty good. But for it to heal really well, if you are needing to be on your feet, I suggest you stay here at the hospital for at least two days," the doctor said, Cora nodding a yes to him.  
  
'I hope Piccolo will be okay with me being in here. I hope he won't worry about me too much,' she thought as she was taken to a private room.  
  
The next two days, Cora stayed in the hospital getting anything she pretty much wanted, but what she wanted most was Piccolo carrying her in his arms.  
  
On the last night of being in the hospital, Cora slept a bit uneasy for some reason. She felt something wasn't right, as she tried to fall asleep. Piccolo was outside still in the alleyway, passing back and forth like a wild cat in a cage, worrying about Cora's well being.  
  
'She shouldn't be in the hospital that long,' Piccolo said to himself, his mind racing with worry.  
  
Back in Cora's hospital room, the door to the room slowly opened as a figure in white lab coat and blue doctor's mask came into her room. Cora kept still as the figure came closer, closing the door behind him. Once the figure got close enough to her bed, the figure quickly jumped on top of her, keeping her hands tightly against the bed. She turned around, her eyes wide with fear as the doctor that she had seen a day ago helping her, was about to rape her. She gasped and almost couldn't speak as the doctor began to take off his pants.  
  
Gasping again she screamed out as loud as she could, "Piccolo!!" she yelled, Piccolo jumping to his feet, his ears flicking to find where the scream came from. Quickly finding the scream, he disappeared and then reappeared at the window of Cora's hospital room. He growled loudly as he saw the doctor beginning to take her clothes off, Piccolo busted through the window and with one single right hook punch to the face, the doctor flew against the door of the room out cold. Piccolo quickly grabbed Cora's clothes and grabbed her and both disappeared out of the hospital, as hospital personal came in the room to find the doctor out cold.  
  
Piccolo reappeared on top of a near by business building with Cora in his arms.  
  
"Did he hurt you?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"No, he never got that far with me, thanks to you," she said hugging him tightly, with tears falling from her eyes as the reality finally sunk into her mind of what had just happened. "He was the doctor I saw about my ankle," she continued with a sniff. "He was trying to rape me," she cried out, Piccolo holding her tightly, rocking her a bit in his arms.  
  
"Can you walk you think?" Piccolo asked as he put her down on the rooftop.  
  
Taking a very slow step with both feet firmly on the ground, she nodded and finally smiled up at him.  
  
"You better get that hospital gown off before you get too cold," he suggested as he gave her clothes. Piccolo turned around the other way, looking down on the hospital, about two cop cars parked outside the hospital front entrance. Now dressed back in her original clothes, she looked over the roof's edge with Piccolo.  
  
"That's the guy, right there!" she said pointing down to where two cops were taking him into custody. "There was a video camera in my room and they caught it all on tape. I just hope they didn't catch you on tape too."  
  
"They didn't see that part, only at the part were I punched the guy out and him trying to rape you," he said as his ears heard everything that the main security guy of the hospital told the news crew. "The rest of it they say was all stack and broken tape from the recorder."  
  
"Oh yeah, you can hear everything they say," she added, Piccolo nodding. "Well, that's good, at least he's gong to jail and I'm safe now. But if they need me to testify against him, I'm not doing it, such you're here. I can't take that risk, such they have all the evidence they need right on the tape."  
  
"Hai, and I think we should get going again. I don't want to stay here another second after what happened to you," he said as he took Cora in his arms again.  
  
She looked back behind him, "Aw, I see you still have my camping pack on your back, that's good."  
  
"I don't really have a reason to take it off, unless you need something. By the way, didn't you have to pay for that doctor check up?"  
  
"Nope, that 'doctor' said he would pay it for me, well, he's really paying it now," she said laughing at bit, Piccolo chuckled a bit as he took to the air quickly making sure no one saw him, he then flew quickly towards Sweden.  
  
As they crossed the Gulf of Bothnia, that separated Sweden and Finland by water, the night sky became clear to them to see the stars.  
  
"Isn't it beautiful to see the stars like this, all in their natural splendor?" Cora said as she looked at the stars passing overhead as Piccolo flew. He stopped after a while and looked at the stars with her. "Too bad I don't have my star constellation chart out, I think it's in my pack, but I don't want to get it out right now."  
  
"Do you know the constellations by heart?" he asked, looking at her beautiful face glowing in the moonlight, the moon being at half and in a few days it would be full.  
  
"I'll try and remember as many as I can, but when we get to Sweden, in a nice cabin lodge, I'll show them to you on my chart," she said looking up at the night sky. "Okay, today's date is November 24, and I would be looking in this direction," she said pointing the way and looking up, following her finger. "There, right at the tip of my finger is the star constellation of Perseus and right above him is Charioteer and next to that is Gimini, the twins. Do you see them?" she asked, Piccolo nodding, his eyes wide to see the stars better than she could. "The Big Dipper and the Little Dipper are gone for the early morning hours right now I think, but the Northern Star should still be up." She looked all around and finally found it way above her over the mountains. "Right there, the Northern Star," she said pointing. "I wonder what kinds of constellations Chikyuu would have?"  
  
"No one has ever really tried to figure that out I don't think, but if they have, I could find out for you some time," he said looking at the moon.  
  
"Then that means you'll have to come back here and give me the charts and a map of Chikyuu," she said looking at the moon too. "I bet you are very happy to not have a Saiya-jin with a tail here with you right now."  
  
"You have no idea how free it feels to not have them here at my heels."  
  
"What was it like to blow up the moon?" she asked, considering she couldn't very well dream of how it felt to have such power to destroy things.  
  
"At the time, it was the only thing I could think of doing to make Gohan stop being a crazy ape. He was very close to probably blowing up Planet Namek and well, I had to do it, and I wasn't all that happy to blow up my home planet's moon," he explained, hanging his head, looking at the water.  
  
"Well, every time you see our Earth's moon, you have the right to proclaime it as Planet Namek's moon if you want?" she said smiling at him a bit.  
  
He looked up at her eyes and smiled softly, "I guess I could," he said looking back up at the moon feeling a bit better after what he told her. Clearing his throat, "Let's go now, you need your rest to heal the ankle a bit more."  
  
Not long they found themselves surrounded by three fishing boats with their lights on brightly on them.  
  
"What is that?" one of the boat's captains asked, pointing out the window.  
  
"Whatever it is, we should shoot it!" another man cried out.  
  
"Let's get out." before she could finish her sentence, Piccolo had flown very fast up high into the clouds, before those fishermen could blink. Cora held onto Piccolo tightly, after such a rush of speed, her stomach all the way down to her gut and her heart racing.  
  
"It's okay now. They can't see us from up here," he said as she opened her eyes looking up at Piccolo.  
  
With a long sigh, "That was close."  
  
"Not even, that was too easy to get away, but that's because those humans were too slow anyway," he said looking back down on the fishing boats, that were not moving away out to sea.  
  
"Maybe we should go to Norway from here, they have many more mountains to hide in and such," she said Piccolo nodding as he flew west for Norway.  
  
Not very long at all, about maybe a ten-minute flight, they came over the mountains of Norway, the peaks full to the brim of freshly packed snow, bright white shinning snow in the moon light. Piccolo lowered his altitude and began to disind down to the mountain range.  
  
"Those are the great mountains of Norway, where Odin is fabled to live in Asgard. It looks like he's been checking out his home land, if you see snow on the peaks, that's where his footsteps had been," she said looking at Piccolo. "Hey, I know my stuff and it pays off."  
  
"Where should we go from here?"  
  
"Well, I wouldn't mind finding a nice warm cabin lodge for at least a few nights. Trust me, you'll love the building work and how nice it will feel to be next the snow right outside your window. Trust me," she said, Piccolo rolling his eyes as he landed a few miles away from a fairly large city. "Are you sure you don't know your way around this planet?"  
  
He looked at her oddly as he put her down, "What the hell do you mean by that?"  
  
"You seem to find the main cities sometimes without me telling you were they are, even if you can't see the city from way above."  
  
"Are you just a bit ditsy? I can see more than you ever will from way up in the sky," he growled at her.  
  
"I'm sorry, Piccolo, I don't know what's wrong with me right now. I guess I'm still shook up from tonight."  
  
With a sigh, "Let's get out of the snow while we can," he said as they walked to Oslo, the capital of Norway.  
  
Cora again took care of all the payments to the cabin lodge room for them both, but for some reason Piccolo wanted a room all to himself and Cora gave it to him with no argument and soon they were both in a dry room. He had gotten tired all of sudden from Cora being there almost all the time at his every whim and it drove him almost to insanity. Even though their rooms were right next door to each other, the wall that separated them were thick enough where they wouldn't want to hear each other, even if they screamed for some reason.  
  
Piccolo threw his cloak, gloves and turban on the floor and fell to the bed flat on his stomach, groaning as he turned on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Cora was busy unpacking a few of her things as she just thought of what she could have done wrong to make him angry. After unpacking some of her things, she looked out her room window, seeing some teenagers playing in the snow at the early morning hours, it still being a bit dark. She sighed and went to her bed and slept for the rest of the time. Piccolo just lay there staring endlessly at the ceiling, not even thinking, but some thoughts had crept up to him anyway.  
  
"She's such a child, but not a child. She is a woman, but how do I react to that?" he said softly to himself. "I have to keep myself under control, or one of us will leave the other and I know that isn't good one bit. Oh, my Kami what am I going to do?" He growled as he sat up on the bed and began to meditate the best he could.  
  
Back in Cora's room, she was tossing and turning as her mind began a dream she probably would never forget.  
  
She was running to a bank for some reason. She looked up and saw the Eifel Tower of Paris, France lite up at night. She turned a corner and stopped dead in her tracks once she saw a figure in a black cloak. She looked at him for a moment and saw his face to be just like Piccolo's, the coloring being perfect in everyway, but his eyes, the eyes were too small. She looked up and saw the words Bank of Paris and looked again at the cloaked Piccolo, he pointing a gun right at her and just before the gun went off, her dream sent her to another part of it very quickly. She was then sitting in a courtroom, as both Piccolos' went up for questioning and then she woke up with a cold sweat, shaking harshly.  
  
Sensing her distress, Piccolo ran out of his room and knocked on her door. "Are you okay, Cora?"  
  
She got up and opened the door for him, "I just had a bad dream, that's all. You can come in if you want," she said sitting on her bad covered up warmly.  
  
He locked the door behind him and sat a table near the window. "What was the dream about?"  
  
"I.I.I don't want to talk about it right now," she stammered, her mind still fresh with the dream that had already been played. "What time is it anyway?"  
  
"It's three in the afternoon," he said looking at the clock in the room. "And while you slept, it snowed pretty hard. All the roads up to this hotel cabin are closed do to snow and ice build up," he added as he opened the curtains to show her.  
  
"Wow, glad we're in here then."  
  
"Hai. I would be caught dead out there right now. I watched about an hour or more of the weather and news."  
  
"English channels I hope?" she asked, cutting him off, Piccolo nodding.  
  
"And they said there will be another storm coming in soon. From what I can tell from just looking outside, is that the storm will rage on for almost a week or more."  
  
"I think I'll pay for another four days worth of staying here," she said as she got up to get dressed. She soon left with her wallet and was down at the lobby in no time. To her amazement she found the lobby full of people trying to get rooms and trying to pay for extra nights for their rooms. She shook her head and went back to her room where Piccolo was waiting, but before she left the lobby she checked with a manager on something.  
  
"Don't you have private hot tubs that you can rent for a few hours?" she asked, kind of blushing.  
  
"Yes, madam, we do, it's 50 krona each two hours."  
  
Cora quickly paid for four hours worth of renting the hot tub and ran to get Piccolo. "I hope he likes it, we both need some relaxing and my ankle could use it too."  
  
"Piccolo," she called out as she opened the room door. "Would you like to go in the hot tub with me down stairs? I've already rented one for four hours and they are all enclosed with blinds too for privacy."  
  
"Uh.Okay, I guess," he replied with an odd look on his face.  
  
"I think we both could use some relax time," she added as Piccolo went to his room to take off his gi and put on his cloak and Cora getting her bikini bathing suit on and a robe.  
  
Piccolo followed close behind, wearing his cloak of course to hide himself. Down this one hallway, there were five rooms that had one hot tub in each on both sides of the hallway, most had vacancy on them, but Cora finally found the one she had ordered for. She quickly opened the door with the key and let Piccolo in first, she then walked in and locked the door behind her, as she threw off her robe and turned on the bubbles to medium. Feeling the heat from the room, Piccolo quickly threw off his cloak and hung it up on the wall. He sat at the edge, his feet in the water, and only wearing a good sized towel around his waist.  
  
"This is the best way to live, I think," Cora said as she sat down in water, only her shoulders showing.  
  
Looking up at her, "It sure is," he said with a sigh.  
  
"I need to get you some swimming trunks. You can't always wear a towel you know," she said looking at him, her face blushing a bit.  
  
For quit some time, both of them just sat in the Jacuzzi saying nothing, only the sound of the bubbles could be heard.  
  
Piccolo looked up at her, his eyes slightly glazed over from being so relaxed. Cora slowly got out of the water and sat on the edge, her body dripping wet, her hair slick back from the water and dripping down her back and chest. Cora smiled softly at him as he just kept looking at her.  
  
'She's so beautiful,' he thought blushing quit a bit, he could hear Cora giggling at him.  
  
"Stop being so shy, will you!" she said playfully. "I can sense it from you, like reading a book or even sensing a crystal in your hand," she said looking deep into his eyes, she then lowered her gaze to the water. "Do you really want to know about my nightmare?" she asked softly.  
  
"Yes, I would like to know."  
  
She looked him square in the face, her eyes locked to his. "All I can tell you, is in the future we may need Dende to help you at something that will protect you on this journey across this Earth. You may or may not be in great danger, but if you are, we will need Dende to help."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I don't want to tell you right now. You will know when the times comes, don't worry about it right now." With that they both kept quiet once again, both of them with their eyes closed and sitting almost perfectly still in the water.  
  
'Oh, Piccolo, I know how you feel about me. Why don't you just come over here and sit next to me at least,' she thought, her thought not being blocked Piccolo had picked it up right away like a bicin of light.  
  
He slowly walked over to Cora, who was sitting across from him. He sat down next to her, putting his arms up on the side of the Jacuzzi. With his fingers he lightly moved a bit of her long hair away from her right shoulder, having it fall down her back, his eyes locked on her every body curve and movement. She slightly shivered with the feel of her neck going cold suddenly, she looked up and saw Piccolo sitting next to her.  
  
"You read my thoughts again, didn't you?" she questioned him with a bit of stern voice.  
  
"Yes," he replied to her with a long almost sensual yes out from his lips.  
  
She backed away a bit, her eyes wide with shock all over her face. 'Oh my Kami, is he falling for me?' she thought, making sure this time to block her thoughts from him. She sat back down next to him and laid her head on his chest, she could hear his heart beating softly. He wrapped his right arm around her shoulder gently and smiled to himself.  
  
'I think we should start things out very slow,' both of them said in their minds, both not able to read what the other had said.  
  
Cora just kept the side of her head on Piccolo's chest, as the warmth from the Jacuzzi and the sound of his heart almost making her fall asleep.  
  
She looked up at him, his black eyes seeming to sparkle in the fog of the water.  
  
"Piccolo, I." her words cut off by Piccolo's fingers covering her mouth gently.  
  
"I know, Cora, but we can't rush into anything. These travels around this world are going to be hard, especially such winter is coming sooner than expected I guess and we don't want to get into something we can handle from each other," he said holding her a bit tighter in his arms, the side of her face on his chest. "From what you told me about your nightmare, we can't risk anything at this point."  
  
"You're right, Piccolo," she said looking up at him with a sigh. "I." Piccolo again covered her lips with his fingers and slowly moved in front of her, standing up a bit. He then bent down, Cora's eyes glazed over and soft with passion in them, as Piccolo came down to kiss her very softly, almost air soft to her lips. It was so light and slow, that she thought he hadn't kissed her, but he had and in her heart she knew he did. Time seemed to stop for only her as she lightly felt his lips touch hers. He stood up again facing her, his hand lightly touching the side of her cheek, her skin feeling soft and wet. She stood up and looked deep into his eyes as she wrapped her arms around his waist.  
  
"Whatever and however we feel for each other, we both have to wait for things to calm down more. Winter is here and you know it," he said, putting his hand to the back of her head, holding her there oh so gently.  
  
She looked at her fingers and chuckled a bit. "I think we need to get out of the water, I'm getting all pruned up here," she said as she slowly walked away from him, Piccolo watching her dry off, watching every curve of her body, it being supple and a bit muscular.  
  
'She's so beautiful,' he thought again, blushing lightly. He then got out of the water and dried off and put his cloak back on, both of them returned to their separate rooms to get dressed. Soon after, Piccolo came back to Cora's room, he locked the door behind him and sat at the table. Cora came out of the bathroom dressed a long sleeved dark purple nightshirt and wearing cotton boxers underneath and thick socks. She sat up in her bed, as she turned on the TV, only stack snow coming on.  
  
"Man, not even the TV cables are working. It must have snowed really heavy last night," she said shivering a bit, as Piccolo got up to turn on the heater. Suddenly a knock came to the door, Cora jumped out of the bed to answer it. She opened the door, a hotel waiter with a menu in his hand.  
  
Giving her the menu, "Before out power goes out, if it does, we are earging all of our guests to have any of their food they would like to be cooked and brought to them quickly. Plus, could you tell your traveling companion to move into your room, for another couple to get his room for the storm," the man said, Cora looked back at Piccolo from behind the door, he nodded a yes.  
  
"Sure, that will be no problem."  
  
The waiter then took out his order list to write down her order. "I'm sorry, miss, but we must hurry with this, before the snow takes out our power." Cora nodding as she quickly looked through the menu and made her order.  
  
The waiter only looked at her in shock of how much she had ordered, "Your order will be up soon." He said as he left for the kitchen.  
  
Closing the door, "Must you always eat so much?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"For this case, it's different. If we are stuck here for what you said we might be, it's best to have plenty of food just in case and I can eat a lot of things cold. I don't know if you noticed but mostly everything I ordered I can eat cold, so don't worry about it," she said. "Man, you are such a worry wart, worse than my mother."  
  
Before her order came to her, Piccolo went to his room to get his cloak and other articles of clothing to her room. After a while, her order came to the door, Cora paying the waiter the bill right away as she wheeled the cart into the room. After a while of eating, she climbed back into the bed, covered up by the thick comforters and sheets.  
  
"You aren't going to go to sleep again, are you?" Piccolo asked, as he sat on the bed next to her.  
  
"No, I'm just cold," she said covering up more.  
  
Piccolo smiled softly to himself as he laid down beside her on top of the covers, wrapping one arm and leg over her body and gently moving his fingers through her hair. He breathed warming over her face to warm her skin, it feeling so calming to her as she seemed to sink deeper into the bed and covers.  
  
"What do you think we should do tomorrow, or in the next few days here, if the snow isn't so bad?" Cora asked, turning on her back to look at him.  
  
"I don't know, what do you humans do here in the snow, in winter?" he asked as if he were a child again.  
  
"I do know how to ski and ice skate. I bet you would love to see that. I think there's an ice rink near the hotel lodge, we'll go there tomorrow if it isn't too bad," she said smiling at the thought of ice- skating again. "Have you ever seen some one ice-skate or ski before?" Piccolo shaking his head no. "Well, you are in for a treat. If you want to learn how to ski I can do that for you, because I don't think you want to ice-skate, it just isn't you," she said chuckling a bit.  
  
"What's so funny about that?" he smirked.  
  
"You'll see, trust me, you'll like it," she said thinking of how funny Piccolo would have looked in ice skates wearing his gi and black or even his white cloak, if it wasn't so torn now. She sighed as she closed her eyes, remembering how Piccolo had kissed her for the first time, even though it was more of a sweet friendship kiss, it didn't bother her one bit, instead it made her feel warmer inside.  
  
"Cora," Piccolo began, Cora opening her eyes looking at him. "I'm sorry if I made you feel hurt yesterday. It was just so stressful, having you in that hospital so long and then what happened after that and when we were coming over here."  
  
"It's okay, Piccolo, I forgive you for your anger towards me. I was just kind of out of it at the time," she replied, putting her fingers to his lips. "Hey, let's not talk about the past, let's just lay here and rest," she said turning over towards Piccolo. She curled up against him, he then quickly got up, turned off the lights and closed the blinds, and then returned swiftly back; slipped under the covers with her, holding her gently, but tight enough not wanting to let her go. His body was warm and soothing, almost like being next to a fireplace, wrapped up in a fur blanket. They both lay there resting for the night, as the snow began to fall once again around the log cabin style hotel.  
  
The next morning, Cora awake first, not noticing that Piccolo was still in the bed. She got her shower and dressed and then finally saw him. She slowly walked over to the side from which he lay, and knelt down before him, moving the covers over just a bit to show his face.  
  
"What's this? He is actually asleep?" she said to herself softly, slightly hearing what seemed to her to be a snore from Piccolo. She smiled at the sound and gently nudged him awake. He opened his eyes and smiled softly, almost unable to see the smile it seemed from her view.  
  
"Did I fall asleep?" Piccolo asked slowly sitting up.  
  
"Yes, you sure did. I thought Namek's never need to sleep," she added, as she put on her copper colored maple leaf earrings.  
  
"We do sleep, when needed if we are injured badly or we sleep in the worst way of being knocked out cold on the ground and that is how I mostly got my sleep it seemed, fighting with the Zetto senshi on the field."  
  
"I bet you woke up with the worst of headaches."  
  
"Not really. My head can take a lot of punishment, but a headache isn't much," he said sitting at the edge of the bed, whipping his face with is hands.  
  
"So, are you ready to watch me ice-skate?" she asked, sitting at the table putting on her hiking boots. She wore a royal blue velvet dress, it being fairly long all the way down to her knees, and she wore thick winter light royal blue stockings to keep her legs warm.  
  
"Let me wake up a bit first," he said reaching for his canteen of water and taking a drink.  
  
Cora looked at the leftovers of food from last night and ate quit a bit of it, even if it was cold she still liked it. Piccolo just looked at her and about lost the water he put down his throat as he watched her eating that cold food.  
  
"Even a Saiya-jin would never eat food that was cold, because it would still be warm or even hot going down to their abyss like stomachs."  
  
"Yeah I know, but I guess you could put me as a different kind of Saiya-jin, if I even was one," she said scarfing down food like it was the last thing she would ever eat again.  
  
After resting her stomach and Piccolo getting dressed in his black attire, they were off to the nearest ice-skating rink. The snow outside was very well packed, but it had gotten blown away by workers to leave a trail to walk through the snow. The ice-skating rink was not all that busy, due to the snowstorm last night. Getting her ticket to skate, she and Piccolo walked in and sat at a bench watching some of the other skaters do there fancy tricks and some kids just learning how to skate.  
  
"I can't wait to get out on the ice," she said putting the white ice- skates she rented.  
  
"How could anyone do that on solid ice? It doesn't look possible," Piccolo said watching the skaters go by.  
  
"It's not easy when you start out, but when you get the hang of it, it's so worth the practice you can almost do anything on the ice," she said looking up at Piccolo as you tied on the other skate. "Maybe you might want to ice-skate," she grinned, Piccolo turning up his nose.  
  
"If I want to deal with speed, I'll just go flying."  
  
"Okay, I'm off," she said leaning up against a wall to balance herself as she walked to the opening of the rink. Piccolo sat closer to the wall to watch her.  
  
At first she just skated around the rink slowly to get her balance and soon went faster. As she glided across the ice, she found herself an opening away from people and did a quick camel spin, her body moving very fast as she brought her body closer inward, the she stopped and looked for Piccolo watching from the other side. She smiled to him as she skated back to the wall.  
  
"So," she said a bit out of breath. "what do you think?"  
  
"Pretty good, but it looked like from my view you almost lost your balance."  
  
"Yeah, only if there weren't so many people on the ice right now, I would be fine not worrying if I ran into someone," she said looking around the rink, the intercom suddenly coming on, it blaring over the rink loudly.  
  
"All children between the ages of five and sixteen please leave the ice. Professional skating has begun."  
  
"Oh, that's my turn," she grinned happily as she took to the ice again. This time only three adults that could skate, plus Cora were on the ice. All four of them making wonderful moves, as they glided across.  
  
Piccolo just watched her in awe and wonder as she moved quickly around the smooth ice, her body seeming to be acting just like the wind. Her hair flowed like soft feathers around her body, every movement of her body almost flawless in motion. With every spin she did, she landed perfectly, seeming to Piccolo almost too perfect. As she glided she passed Piccolo quickly, leaving behind a great blow of gold wind across his face, she looked back and smiled as she came into another flair out of her body on the ice.  
  
After what seemed forever, the ice rink had to close do to the coming storm of the day. Cora got off the ice and ran into Piccolo's arms totally out of breath.  
  
"Let's hide and wait for everyone to leave, so I can skate more," she said with a glimmer in her eyes, Piccolo smiled and flew up to the rafters and hide, waiting for everyone else to leave.  
  
After every had gone, the ice rink was theirs, Cora turned on the lights to a nice brightness, but not to bright to aware the towns people. She then turned on some music that they had on their stereo system and turned it up. She quickly got back onto the ice, happier than ever to have the rink all to herself, even though they were breaking the law, but Piccolo kept his hearing and eyes out for any people coming.  
  
She was true happiness for that day, gliding across the ice like she was an ice fairy playing at her iced over pond.  
  
"Would you like to be on the ice?" she called out to Piccolo as she passed him swiftly by, the cold air hitting his green face.  
  
Sensing it was safe, Piccolo took off his dark outfit and stood at one of the entrances to the rink watching her. "You can have the ice all to yourself," he replied, Cora shrugging and smiled as she passed him again even faster, his antenna blowing in the direction she took.  
  
She skated on the ice until it probably hurt, but that didn't bother her. She seemed she had to be on the ice and keep on skating. She did many combined spins, her body spinning very fast as she did them, and then moved out, going into a few camel spins and half pikes in the air. But just as she was about to begin another take off into the air with a spin, the air in the rink got extra cold. She fell to the ice hard, her knees hurting as she landed. She slowly got up, and before she could get to her feet completely, a large gust of wind came in from the North, blasting all the windows and doors to the rink open, glass flying all over the place. Piccolo flew over to Cora the best he could, but this Northern wind kept him away from her, she was stranded in the direct center of the rink, the wind whipping all around her.  
  
"Piccolo!" she cried out, as the wind picked her up off the ice, having her float above the ice about ten feet in the air. Piccolo could only land back down on the ground and watch in horror as Cora was being taken away by the wind, but it did not take her away. The wind suddenly took on a ribbon look around her body, her body glowing solid white.  
  
Suddenly, she passed out and from that her soul came out of her body. Her soul all dressed in a flowing white dress, hair solid white, eyes as blue as ice from the rink. Her soul fully left her body and began to dance around the ribbon like wind. The wind and Cora's soul seemed to become one, their mystic forms winding around each other softly. Piccolo could only watch, he could do nothing, how could he fight this, when he couldn't sense it, or even see it really and he couldn't fight it also because Cora's soul was in the middle of this Wind. As Cora's soul finished becoming one with this Northern wind, the wind finally died down and her soul returned back into her body. She gently floated to the ice rink, she lay there flat and not seeming to breath. Piccolo flew over the ice quickly to be at her side, he landed slowly not to slip on the ice, but no matter how much he tried he still fell kind of hard on the ice, leaving an cracked imprint of his hip on the ice. He moved over to Cora's lifeless body and wrapped his arms around her protectively. She soon awoke, her eyes slowing opening and seeing Piccolo in her sight, she smiled softly.  
  
"Are you okay?" he asked, brushing some of her hair away from her face.  
  
"I'm just fine, I feel so good right now, you have no idea what it feels like to Soul Travel and when the Wind comes in to become one with you."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"The shaman, he told me about this in a way as he trained me. He said I would find the one to help me give life to seven crystal spheres," she said reaching up to touch Piccolo's face.  
  
Piccolo looked at her in shock. 'Seven crystal spheres, how could they have their own Dragon Balls?' he asked himself, his mind all in shock.  
  
"I'll tell you everything of what just happened when the time comes," Cora said as she passed out, but just as she did, Piccolo could see Cora's soul now finally going back into her body. Cora's soul was the one speaking, not Cora and it seemed at that point that Piccolo really had to keep his mouth shut for her safety, not knowing the "truth" of how Cora would react to this.  
  
He picked Cora up in his arms and flew over to where her boots and his dark color outfit were laid out on a table where they left them. He laid her down on the dry floor and began to take off her skates and put her boots back on. He then got himself dressed up again and picked Cora up in his arms again and took off out of the skating rink, just in time when the owners came running to see what had happened to their ice rink. Only the building had window and door damage, the ice rink itself inside only had some chairs and tables turned over and the ice only having one cracked dint in it of Piccolo's hip hitting the ice.  
  
Piccolo placed Cora underneath his black cloak, hiding her from anyone that might think she did the damage. He soon made it safely back to the hotel room and locked the door behind him. He lay her on the bed, taking off her boots and sat on the bed next to her, waiting so patently for her to awaken.  
  
After a while, Cora awoke, her eyes opened to the sight of seeing Piccolo meditating at the end of the bed. She slowly moved up and sat there right across from him in the same seated position and began to meditate with him.  
  
Piccolo in such deep thought, didn't even notice Cora's awakening and beginning of her meditation with him. She could feel her body relaxing as she felt a warm light coming from Piccolo's mind. She went into her meditation deeper than she had ever gone before and found herself face to face with Piccolo's inner self inside his mind. Piccolo's inner self opened his eyes and saw her.  
  
"What are you doing in my mind?"  
  
"I didn't know I could be able to go this deep into meditation. Is it okay that I meditate with you?" she asked, Piccolo nodding and then going back to his mediating state of being.  
  
Both of them sat before each other meditating late into the night, or at least until Cora broke her meditation to go eat. She slowly opened her eyes and walked over to the food on the table and sat to eat.  
  
Piccolo opened his eyes then and looked to her sternly. "I don't want you to go in that deep unless I tell you that you can."  
  
"Okay, I just thought it would be a good idea at the time," she said still eating her feast of leftover food she had ordered the other day.  
  
"But for what you went through today, you can come in and join me once again, to clear your mind, if you want," he suggested, Cora smiling a bit at him at the offer. "I'm just wondering though, do remember anything that happened to you on the ice today?" he asked her, hoping that she wouldn't remember the great details of what happened.  
  
Putting down her fork, "I remember it all. I remember being swept up in the air by this great gust of wind, it was cold on me as it wrapped around my body," she said closing her eyes and then quickly opening them again. "I can also remember my soul, she left my body again. I can never forget any of my Soul Travels, how could anyone forget even their first. I'll tell you about it sometime."  
  
Piccolo looked at her in amazement. "Do you remember anything else that happened with your soul, of what you call a Soul Travel?"  
  
"I remember everything of my Soul Travels. I remember seeing my Soul flying around with the element of Wind, she slowly became one with this great element and I think I can still feel that element within me," she said putting her hands to her stomach as if she were pregnant, Piccolo seeing this with his eyes he suddenly couldn't move, talk, or even almost breath. "What wrong with you?" she said looking down at her stomach. "Hell no I'm not, if I was I would have known about it by now and for Kami's sake you better not have done anything with me, even if you could!" she yelled, throwing a fork over his head, it hitting the wall, fork points sticking to the wall.  
  
"Hey, just calm down a second. If I did anything to you last night, which I know I didn't, I would have known it too. But tell me, do you remember what your soul said to you or even to me, while you were unconscious?"  
  
"Not much, only something about these crystal spheres," she said with her mouth full of food, she then swallowing. "I've known about those seven crystal spheres for a while now. You look like you thought I would know?" she said laughing. "That's why I had to find you, you baka."  
  
Enraged with anger, Piccolo grabbed Cora by the fabric of her dress in one hand, holding her in the air, his eyes seeming to growl all there own, his voice starting out a growl as he spoke. "You just want to use me to create those Dragon Balls for your own pleasure?"  
  
Gulping hard, "No, the shaman told me that I would find you, he didn't know who or what you were, he just said it was destined to be and we have to take this a day at a time. Already I can feel the first Crystal Dragon Ball forming within my soul," she said, as Piccolo placed her on the bed, he stood there in anger, his Namekian blood boiling. "I think you should have a talk with Dende about this or maybe Dende has no idea, because from what I know, this Earth has it's own Fates and Guardians and Dende had no idea what he did, he only sent you here just for a vacation and nothing more of what he knew. You have to believe me that he had no part in this what so ever. The Fates of this Earth are the ones controlling it, and I've worked with them before on something like this. How else would I know what's going on inside me!" she cried out, tears falling from her eyes.  
  
Piccolo looked down at her, his eyes finally relaxing. "I must have forgotten that Namek's are the ones that can create the Dragon Balls," he said sitting on the bed next to her, Cora moving over to the foot of the bed, feeling a bit scared of Piccolo. He turned and looked at her, her back to him, her head down. "I'm sorry, Cora, I'm so sorry."  
  
"I don't think you are this time, and I don't want you near me right now okay," she snapped at him, as he got up to stand in front of her. She got up and moved over to the door, her back to him. He followed, putting his hand gently on her shoulders, she flinched and moved away from him. "I said not to come near me!" Piccolo not listening to her plea, put his hand on her shoulders tighter, he said nothing. "I said, leave me alone!" She yelled, running out of the hotel room crying. She ran down the hall outside to the winter snow, her feet not covered by her hiking snow boots, they quickly got wet and cold, but she kept running straight for the snow covered forest crying.  
  
Piccolo got his dark attire back on and ran after her in the snow, following her tracks as he ran. He soon found her sitting on her knees in the snow, surrounded by trees, quit far away from the hotel and anyone that may see them. He quietly walked over to her and wrapped his dark cloak around her shivering body. She looked up and just before she felt she had to run away from him, she could see a single tear from his eyes falling down his cheek.  
  
"You said it yourself, we need each other on this and we need to work together and trust each other," Piccolo said as he kept the cloaked wrapped around them both. She put her fingers to the tear and touched it, feeling how warm it was.  
  
"Can you trust me for what I say to be the truth of all of this that's going on between us?" she asked as she looked deep into his black eyes.  
  
"Yes, I trust you, more than ever now. Do you trust me with the way I can be?"  
  
"Yes, I promise to never let you down," she said as Piccolo picked her up into his arms, wrapping the black cloak around her body, holding her tightly. She looked up at the sky and found it to be snowing, the flakes falling gently to the ground all around them.  
  
"I believe it is now winter," Cora added as she stuck out her hand to catch some snow. She laughed like a young child as the snow fell on to her face and hair, Piccolo seeing this smiled for what seemed his best smile ever, even though he didn't show his teeth like most other people the would smile. She looked back up at Piccolo and smiled back at him, he then held her up in his arms, their bodies pressed against each other, as he slowly came into a kiss with her lips. Their embrace could probably be seen by all the spirits of the Earth, their kissing being that passionate and true for the first time, unlike the little tiny friendship kind of kiss before. Their lips warming each others bodies, as they held each other tightly, seeming to not let go, the snow falling gently all around them. Soon Piccolo broke the kiss and he went back to carrying her in his arms, walking back to the hotel, his hood covering his face once again.  
  
Back in the room, they sat on the bed together, looking at a map.  
  
"Where do we go next?" Piccolo asked, eager like always to keep moving.  
  
"We'll just have to let the Winds of the Earth take us where they want us to be, I guess," she said, Piccolo playfully throwing a pillow at her.  
  
"But there's still one more thing that is bothering me," he said laying back against the headboard of the bed.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"I don't understand how a Dragon Ball could be made by me, when I never called upon them to be made."  
  
"The shaman told me, that you carry the power of creating them inside your heart and I guess now, I'm the one that will carry them until they are ready to be awakened," she said pondering this in her mind. "I get it now," she added, Piccolo turning to her.  
  
"That first kiss!" they both said in unison, they both fell back in a bit of laughter and then sat back up again.  
  
"I wonder what will be next?" Piccolo said, putting his hand on her stomach, Cora noticing this, slapped him across the face. "Hey, what did I do?"  
  
"I may not be pregnant in the natural way, but don't you dare put your hand on my stomach like that again," she growled, slipping into bed for the night. "But tell me, are you full A sexual or are you capable of making children the other way with someone of the opposite sex?"  
  
"No, I'm full A sexual, I can only impregnate myself when it is truly needed or if I want to. I can't get you pregnant at all, I don't have the means to do it."  
  
"Okay, thank Kami on that one then. Well, I'm going to sleep now, I'll see you in the morning."  
  
With that, Piccolo got off the bed, bent over and kissed Cora on the forehead and sat on the floor in a corner to mediate the night away, his mind full of thought and great joy and satisfaction he had never felt before within him. Cora had found a calm inside her, as she knew she carried inside her soul, the first Dragon Ball of its kind for this Planet Earth. 


	6. To The Highlands

"Ones Quest, Another's Journey"  
  
Part 6:  
  
"To the Highlands"  
  
The next morning, Cora woke quit early, feeling good about the next journey to a distant land across the water. She checked her calendar, the date saying November 27, she smiled up at Piccolo as she stood up.  
  
"What are you so happy about?" he asked, looking at her oddly.  
  
"I think we should be heading out to sea again, over the North Sea to Scotland and don't worry, I'll tell you what I can about what's in Scotland," she replied with glee in her voice. She quickly got her shower and got dressed in her best Medieval style velvet attire. It being, a lovely dark shade of green long sleeved blouse, with long tapered Medieval style sleeves, trimmed in gold ribbon; her pants brownish green velvet, almost looking and feeling like leather. Her belt around her waist was braded dark brown, with a buckle of gold colored brass; her boots black soft leather, with tied shoelace looking bows in the back. On top of it all she put on the crowning piece she wore, a soft leather brown vest, made in the old Medieval style of royal riders on horseback.  
  
"You really know how to dress," Piccolo commented, his cheeks blushing a bit.  
  
"Aye, my lord, I do," she said in a Scottish/Irish accent as she cleaned up her things, putting them neatly back into her pack and taking out her Celtic music CD to play on the way to Scotland.  
  
"What's so special about this country?"  
  
"I shal't not give thee a word of the wonder of Scotland, Ireland and England, until we are amongst it, sire," she said in her best Shakespearian speaking accent. She bowed to Piccolo and smiled calmly. "Shall we be on our way, my lord?"  
  
Piccolo smiled as he followed her out of the room. They soon checked out of the hotel and were walking towards the shores of Norway, over looking the North Sea of where the United Kingdom lay in wait for them.  
  
The sea was not all that rough with the wind blowing fairly cold, but it was inviting to Cora to say the least. She smiled like a child about to enter into the biggest maze ever. She turned on her music and looked to Piccolo, he holding in his hands her dark green velvet cloak, he tied it around her and gathered her up in his arms once again.  
  
"You aren't going to eat breakfast?"  
  
"I already did while in the bathroom after my shower, I ate one of my energy bars," she grinned as he took to the air, flying over the sea, she then turned up her music, Piccolo hearing it well. 'These are the sounds and songs of England, Scotland, and Ireland that you hear, my all time favorite kind of music,' she said to him in telepathy.  
  
Piccolo blinked as he heard her words in his mind. "You never used telepathy before?"  
  
"Anyone can do it, you just have to find the right person that can hear it, and you are that person," she said smiling.  
  
Even with her music playing, she could feel and hear the sounds of the clouds way above her, rumbling out thunder like there was no tomorrow among their traveling. Piccolo looked up, seeing the deep grayness of the clouds bellowing everywhere with their thunder crashing, his ears not caring in the world of what may come next. The soft Celtic flutes brought a smile to Piccolo's face, he had never heard such soft inviting music like this, unlike Cora's other songs she played. It seemed to him that Cora was in her truest element of home, a place that he could sense from her that was strong and pure of an ancient time that he knew he would soon learn about from her. Just like Japan and China from what he could tell of being very old; ancient, this United Kingdom would be just as the same of old; ancient. The music the he heard, he could already get an idea of what the culture was like and warmly it could be.  
  
With a sudden crash of thunder, Cora barred her head in Piccolo's warm chest, her head wrapped up in the hood of her cloak. She peeked out of the hood and looked around a bit.  
  
"I don't know if you have noticed but we seem to have such great luck, with no one around," she said as she barred her face back into his warm chest.  
  
"I know what you mean. It does seem odd that there isn't anyone out here at sea in boats."  
  
After a while, Cora came to hear the wonderful calling of sea gulls calling out over the sea, the wind carrying them high up in the sky, the music that played for both of them seemed to highten the wonder of Scotland's beauty guiding them to the land. The harps in the music made Piccolo feel as though he were under a spell, but he knew it was only the music. The feel and taste of the salty sea air, gave Piccolo a bad taste in his mouth, he held Cora tightly with one arm, and grabbed his water canteen and taking a drink.  
  
"You need a drink?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"No thanks, I don't drink much water, my body can handle it, you'd be surprised," she replied as he put the canteen back in his pouch and carried her properly in his arms again.  
  
After about an hour flight, they made it to the shores of Scotland, he landed on a cliff that over looked the North Sea. Placing Cora down on her feet, Cora sat on her knees at the edge of the cliff, smiling at the land as she looked around.  
  
She looked up at Piccolo and smiled. "Welcome to Scotland," she said in her best Scottish accent, as Piccolo helped her up by one hand.  
  
"Have you been here before?" he asked, as they walked the grasses and valleys.  
  
"I have been here, once and when you leave, you never will forget it," she said looking up at the clouds, a hint of a rainbow lay before them in the sky. "Look, it must have rained here a bit ago, cause there's a rainbow about to fade," she pointed, Piccolo looked and nodded. She looked down and laughed. "There is one main rule you must know here, watch out for the sheep shit."  
  
Piccolo looked down at the ground and sure enough he had walked right into a small pile of sheep droppings, he turned his nose up and scuffed off his boot clean on the grass. "You should have told me earlier."  
  
"I kind of tried, but I was in the moment of Scotland and when I am, I'm a completely different person, like a changeling child in spring, so watch out," she said with a chuckle. "What is here in Scotland are many things. First off, we are on the main island of the United Kingdom and it has many other smaller islands around it, on being Ireland which I love most of all," she said in a Scottish accent, bowing a bit as she walked.  
  
Cora took out her map of Scotland and looked in front of her, they had come upon the town of Inverness. A fairly large town, but quit nice to Cora's taste of Medieval living that was perfect to her in every way. To its old buildings, to the culture it held inside its museums of art and history.  
  
"Let's not stay long here, I have a feeling you want to show me something very special," Piccolo said as he fixed his cloak to hide him better.  
  
Cora turned off her music and put it away in the camping pack. "I intend to show you Loch Ness, the most famous lake in the British Isles of the United Kingdom, and if we are lucky, which we have been in some odd things, we could get a chance to see the Loch Ness monster the Scott's all know and love, her name be Nessy," she told him, his eyes went wide at the word of a monster on this Earth. "Don't look so shocked. She's real, I believe, but a lot of people believe she's not. When we get to Loch Ness, you'll see," she said grabbing Piccolo to by the hand and pulling him to the entrance of Inverness. "Now I can get something to eat that will stick to my gullet," she added as she saw the closed pub. "And you will be coming in here with me, okay," Piccolo nodding as they walked in.  
  
She sat at a table with Piccolo across from it, he put the camping pack down next to the wall, keeping his face hidden for sure. For some reason, Piccolo didn't feel comfortable being in the pub at all.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asked, holding his hand.  
  
"I sense something strong in this place, something isn't right."  
  
"Don't worry about it, I won't have you getting into any bar brawls while we are here in the United Kingdom, I'll take the fights for you and you know exactly why," she replied to him sternly, Piccolo nodding as a waitress came up to their table.  
  
"What will it be, lass?" the woman asked, pen and pad of paper in hand to take down their order.  
  
"I'll have a fairly large breakfast of everything you have that will stick to my gullet," she replied, Piccolo eyes looking at her oddly from underneath the hood, the blackness of his eyes could be eerily seen from under the hood.  
  
"Okay, one Jake's Breakfast, anything else?"  
  
"One shoot of your best Scottish whiskey afterwards."  
  
The woman looked at her shockingly, "Are you sure, you look like you're a lady that might not be able to take it after a breakfast like what you're about to get."  
  
"Her stomach can handle anything," Piccolo added, as the woman wrote the order down.  
  
"And for you, sir?"  
  
"Nothing for me, thanks," he replied keeping his eyes hidden from her.  
  
"Make that, two shoots of your best whiskey. My friend here already ate," Cora added, the woman writing it down and going on her way to make the order up quickly. "Going to restaurants with you is going to be hard on me."  
  
"I know, but I promise you that I will taste some foods on this trip," he said looking into her eyes, she blushing a bit.  
  
Thirty minutes to an hour later, Cora's fairly large breakfast came to her. It's main plate full to the brim of anything you could think of for breakfast.  
  
"I think your eyes were bigger than your stomach," Piccolo smirked turning his nose up at what was in front of her.  
  
"Nope, they were both just the right, over the top size for what I like. I don't know if you've noticed yet, but I mainly eat only one large meal a day and some snacks on top of that. That's why you don't seem to see me eat much, cause I pig out for the first part of the day," she said smiling and chuckling as she started to eat. She ate slowly this time, not to over do herself and to let the food last her most of the day. Piccolo leaned back in his chair against the wall and closed his eyes, trying hard to ignore Cora's munching and gulping down food. No matter how hard he tried, it seemed he was destined to be around big eaters in his life, but at least she wasn't like Gokou, he certainly thanked his lucky stars for that.  
  
After a few hours it seemed of eating, there was hardly any thing left for her to take with her on the road. The waitress returned with the bill and took the plates away, she soon returned with two shoots of Scottish whiskey.  
  
"Are you two going to the Winter Medieval festival in Ireland?" she asked placing the two shoot glasses of whiskey on the table.  
  
"Yep, that's exactly why I mainly came here, my friend here was almost forced to come with me. Do you know the price for passes and all that?"  
  
"Aye, I do. The way you're dressed, the way both of you are dressed you might be lucky to get in for free, but you don't know. The main full pass around the festival is fifteen pounds, it's their best price to date, and don't forget to see Nessy."  
  
"We intend on see that old girl and thank you very much for the information and don't worry I know when it will begin," Cora added, the waitress nodding and going on about her business.  
  
Piccolo sat back up straight in his chair and took the shoot glass in his fingers and sniffed the light brown liquid, he turned his nose, his eyes watering a bit.  
  
"This is to be the best stuff around and this is one thing I want you to try. Just take it straight down, Piccolo," she said as he put the glass back in his hand, the looked at each other, Cora smiled and winked, as they both shoot the whiskey down their throats. Cora slammed the glass down on the table, where as Piccolo placed it on the table almost dropping it out of his fingers. The look on his face that she could see was pure surprise. "It's something else, it's it?" she chuckled, whipping her mouth with her hand smiling.  
  
With a bit of a cough, "I've never tasted anything like this."  
  
"But do you like it?"  
  
"A bit, it sure does make your blood warm up," he said whipping the tears from his eyes. Piccolo looked up in front of him, a dark red haired man seated in a corner watching them.  
  
Looking back up at him, "I know, I'll handle it," she said softly as she took off her cloak, throwing it to the chair, the man standing up moving over closer to Cora.  
  
"I don't like you and your friend!" the red haired man said, Cora looking at the man with a stern face and not flitching. "You and your kind are not welcome here."  
  
"Now, come on Drake, let's not start this again," the bartender said.  
  
"Shut up, Duncan, I'll take care of the clean up," he added, anger in his voice as he looked at Cora and gave her one hell of a punch to the face. She feel back, but quickly jumped back and high kicked him in the chest, it not even hardly making him move back. She jumped back in fighting stance ready for the next hit.  
  
"Oh, look at this, a little Kung Fu fighter," he smirked, taking another punch to Cora, she dodging it with ease as she came down punching the man right in the center of his stomach, hitting him so hard he doubled over in pain. With that she jumped up on top of the man, he looked up and as she came down on him, she swiftly kicked him in the face. She landed on the floor, and stood up again, for more. The guy got up again and tried to do the best he could of a sidekick to Cora, but she dodged that too and grabbed his leg, hitting his knee with her elbow, and trying to swing him to the ground, but with no chance. She fell back and looked up at Piccolo who was watching this closely, finding it very amzing.  
  
"You're doing just fine, keep it up," Piccolo said to her, as she looked up at the man, who was about to punch her once more.  
  
She then swiftly swung around, kicking the guy on the neck, spinning him around just a bit, but as he was slightly dazed, she came up again, with her fist clutched very tightly, anger in her eyes. Piccolo looked up right away at Cora with wide eyes as she swung hard, everyone in the pub could hear a crack come from Drake's jaw and a slight pop from her knuckles. The punch to his face was so powerful, by such a woman like herself, even though she didn't look like much, it caused Drake to fall to the floor flat on his back.  
  
She looked at Piccolo and smiled slightly. 'Take him out for the count one last time,' he said to her by telepathy, she looked up and sure enough Drake got back up on his feet, but not so well. She did what he told, ran up to him and jumped up high, coming down on him with one very hard elbow jab to his neck, it causing him to go unconscious, his body lay still on the pub floor. Those who stayed in the pub watching looked at Cora with surprise, the bartender was sure he would faint right there after what he had seen. She stood there over her enemy, breathing hard as she slowly walked away. Suddenly, everyone in the pub began to cheer with yells and clapping.  
  
Piccolo looked from under his cloak and smiled at Cora, she turned to look at him and smiled back. "You did well for just that one guy."  
  
"Thank you, Piccolo," she said sitting back down at the table, putting her cloak back on and looking at the bill and placed the payment of it and a nice tip at the table. They got up, Piccolo put the camping pack back on his back as they began to walk out of the pub, five men began to drag Drake out of the pub.  
  
"Hey, for your bravery to face Drake, and finally taking him out of here, have this on us," the bartender said, as he threw a bottle of that same Scottish whiskey to Cora.  
  
"Thank you. I hope Drake never comes back, if he does, he better not pass my companion and I again on the road," she said as they walked out of the pub and back onto the road once again.  
  
The highland sky finally cleared, showing beautiful blue sky and the sun shinning down on them.  
  
"Well, you've experienced your first bar brawl and I can't promise you that you'll not see anymore of them. I hope you know why I would usually do most of the fighting."  
  
"How many times do I have tell you, I can't because of how strong I am and what I could do and who I am. I know, I know. I wonder if you know that I wish I could get into some of that fighting myself, I'm a better fighter than you and you know it," he said, with a bit of annoyance in his voice.  
  
"Yes, you sure are. Maybe you will get into one, one of these days while you are here, but I doubt it. I'm starting to have fun at this and yes I know there is more to fighting than some fun, so don't you start!" she yelled.  
  
Piccolo laughed, "All right, I won't bug you on it," he said putting his hand on her shoulder. "So, where do we go from here?"  
  
"Well, we can't stay long, cause in a two days will be the Winter Medieval Festival of Ireland. The festival lasts for almost a full two weeks and it's very worth the trip to get there," she said smiling up at him. "And I'm not going to tell you what to expect, because with me, you have to expect the unexpected, especially at a festival of the Medieval times."  
  
"And you will have to expect the unexpected with me too," he added.  
  
"Not really, cause you're quit predictable."  
  
"Yeah right! Are you saying you didn't look at me with surprise when I sat next to you or when we kissed? Do you call that predictable and expected? I think not!" he snapped, giving out a bit of a chuckle.  
  
Cora sighed as she looked around the town, soon her eyes catching the sight of a tour bus going to Loch Ness.  
  
"There's our way to Loch Ness," Cora said, pulling at Piccolo's cloak sleeve. "Why don't we start out there now while the weather is good?" Piccolo nodded and followed her close behind to the bus. They got their tickets and boarded the bus and they were on their way to see, or at least hopefully see the Loch Ness monster.  
  
"What wrong with you?" Cora asked look at Piccolo who was staring out the window and feeling a bit uneasy.  
  
"I don't do well in a tight place like this," he said groaning a bit.  
  
"It is kind of cramped today. I guess you're a bit claustrophobic and a bit of motion sick. That happens to some people when they get on a bus or plane, it's okay, we'll be there soon," she said trying to calm Piccolo. "I hope," she said under her breath the best she could, but Piccolo turned his eyes to her, and she knew he still heard her. "Gomen."  
  
"It's okay. I think I can make it," he said holding his stomach, as the bus drove around some big turns.  
  
"Here, drink some water, maybe it will make you feel better," she said handing him her canteen of water. He took it and drank a good bit of it and handed it back to her. She looked up underneath his hood and saw his eyes clenched tightly closed and holding his stomach, from that she gave him a barf bag. "Just hold it in the best you can for now, until we get off this bus, okay, please Piccolo just hold it."  
  
Her words were in vane with no help at all, and Piccolo lost it right there in the bag. She turned her eyes away from him as lost it, she cringed and almost felt sick herself from hearing him heave.  
  
"Will he be all right?" a bus attendant asked as she came over to see what was going on.  
  
"He's just a bit motion sick I guess. Do you have any of those motion sickness pills?"  
  
"I'm sorry miss, we do not; only the boats have that mostly."  
  
"Then could you get me a cold wet wash cloth for his forehead, please?" she asked, the woman going to get the wet cloth, she returned quickly with it and gave it to Cora.  
  
After a while, Piccolo finally stopped getting sick and the attendant threw the fairly full bag away. Cora bent over to see his face, it being a lighter shade of green and his eyes looked very tired and a bit puffy. She put the wash cloth to his forehead and held it there for a while, until Piccolo held it in place himself.  
  
"At least it was all water and nothing else," Cora said putting her hand on his back trying to calm his nerves.  
  
"I've never gotten sick before, not to mention I've never been on a bus before," he said as Cora got up to open his side window to let in some air, he lay his head on the window taking in as much of the air he could.  
  
"Do you feel any better now?" she asked, Piccolo shaking his head slowly. "Maybe it was that whiskey drink, that might have really kicked your insides without knowing it until now. Remind me not to give you any more alcohol again or trying to get you drunk."  
  
"It was that small shoot of whiskey, it's just the motion of this bus moving. If it was the drink, I would have known about it about five seconds after taking it.  
  
Suddenly a voice over the intercom could be heard of a man's voice speaking.  
  
"Here we are, lads and lassies, Loch Ness, home of the Nessy."  
  
"Well, you can finally get off this bus," she said as the bus stopped, the attendant came over to them and helped Piccolo out of his seat, making sure that Piccolo and Cora were the first ones off the bus. After getting back on solid ground, Piccolo leaned up against a light poll, while Cora got her camping pack out of the bus' holding compartments. "I think we should leave this at the front desk of the tour," she said carrying it on her back and walking over to the front desk. After leaving it with it's own tag to find it again, Cora ran back to Piccolo who was now sitting on the ground groaning. "Maybe you need something you can actual eat. Will that be okay?"  
  
"Yes, I think you're right, just don't get me anything spicy," he groaned as she went to get him something.  
  
She came back with some regular bread and some saltine crackers and a glass of milk.  
  
"Here," she said handing him the food. "This is the best I could do for now. I promise you that these will calm your stomach and give you the strength you need to feel better," she said as Piccolo ate the bread and crackers slowly and drank the milk, even though he didn't like the taste of it at all. After a while, the food was gone, but half of the milk in the glass was still left. "You don't want the rest of the milk?" she asked Piccolo shaking his head, she drank it down quickly. "I can drink milk all day, if I wanted to."  
  
"You can eat and drink anything all day if you wanted to," he said slowly standing up, Cora helping him.  
  
She looked to see the tour boat leaving. "Well, we've missed the boat tour, but that won't bother us, now will it. We can just walk around the land and see Nessy ourselves," she said walking with Piccolo slowly, as she held onto him. Before they started to get going, Cora went back to pick up her camping pack, she put it on and walked back to Piccolo.  
  
The colors of Scotland were such beautiful shades of green; that Cora couldn't but help herself to a bad joke, but she kept it to herself.  
  
'If he runs around here naked in Scotland or even Ireland, and hides somewhere in the grass, I'll never find him again,' she said to herself, hiding the joke from Piccolo's mind.  
  
"Scotland sure is beautiful," he said looking around.  
  
"You'll soon find out why I love the United Kingdom so much and how you will know this is just how I feel at this very moment," she added, smiling as she looked around. Quickly, she caught the eye of a Scottsman playing his bagpipes up atop a hill, the wind blowing his kilt and frays at the end of the pipes. "Piccolo, look over there," she pointed.  
  
"What kind on instruments are those?"  
  
"Bagpipes, Scotland's most popular and ancient of musical instruments around," she stopped walking and just stood there watching the man play, the sound of the pipes quit loud, it made her blood flow fast through her body. "I love the sound of the pipes," she said looked at Piccolo. "Is the music hurting your ears?"  
  
"No, not really, I'm glad it's not a human whistling, but it does sound very interesting," he commented, as Cora went to her camping pack to take out her camera to take some pictures of the Scottsman. As she took the pictures, Piccolo could see her twitching her eyes a bit and turning her head to the side. "I see it hurts your ears though."  
  
"Yeah, just the high pitched blows hurt, but if there where more interments playing it wouldn't hurt as much," she said taking more shots of the man, she then stood back next to Piccolo. "The pipes are best played during a parade and by themselves out in the highlands. For ceremonies they are played at weddings and funerals. When they are played at weddings they are said to bring great fortune to the wedded couple and when they are played during a funeral, they bring great pride, honor and closing for the one that passed away. When you see a funeral here and they play the pipes, you will know what I mean," she said as the man finished playing his song, he soon walked over to them both smiling.  
  
"How are ye travelers doin' this fine day?" the man asked in a Scottish accent.  
  
Cora answered in her best accent for fun, but the man knew she was American. "Quit marry, this day, sir. You're playing was the best, I've heard in a long time."  
  
"That was my first time hearing them, I liked it," Piccolo added.  
  
"Then I've done my job to make you feel at home here in Scotland. Lassie, your accent is pure, you must have lived here once."  
  
"In a way I have," she said smiling.  
  
"Well, I'm off, good journey to you both," the man said as he walked back to the town of Inverness.  
  
"So, what do you think of Scotland so far?" she asked again speaking her best accent.  
  
"It sure is ancient."  
  
"Aye, it is, quit ancient in fact, my lord."  
  
"Why are you calling me that?"  
  
"Cause, I want to, it suits you, you are a higher being than I will ever be. Would you like me not to call you that?"  
  
"Nay, it's okay. I kind of like it that way," he said with a smirk of pride beaming through him, just like Vigeta, but more of a mannered way.  
  
They went back to walking the dirt roads up deep into the highlands. "You know, we should be coming across some castles by now."  
  
After a good walk of some miles, they finally came upon Urquhart Castle, on the side of the Loch Ness. It's main building seeming that it would fall apart, the stone dark gray from weather. The tower over looking the Loch from the north, the water a dark blue and moving with great life, the sky blue and sunny. They walked up to the bridge that connected the castle to the road and walked across, Cora taking pictures as they walked.  
  
"The stone work is so old," Piccolo said as she looked up at the towers and ruins that were left of it.  
  
"Aye, but still with plenty of life in the lady still," she said smiling, as she took more pictures of the Loch, her camera suddenly stopping and rewinding her film. "Oh, I'm out of film now, but I'm glad I brought plenty," she said as Piccolo kneeled to the ground for Cora to get after her pack.  
  
"How many rolls of film do you have?"  
  
"I think about twenty, this is the first one that is finally full, and while we're here in Scotland, all we are mainly going to do is travel down the loch towards Ireland, take pictures and keep an eye out for Nessy. I hope I can see the old girl." She said, suddenly hearing someone playing the bagpipes once again, this time it was the song that got to her the most.  
  
Up atop a hill above them, there was a funeral taking place. The pipes playing Amazing Grace, as the casket was being placed into the ground. Cora looked up and stood tall for the respect for who had died.  
  
"Now you see what I mean," Cora said, as Piccolo watched and listened.  
  
"Hai, I do. Your kind really know how to respect the dead with great honor and pride," he said standing up with Cora.  
  
"May the man or woman that lay in the highlands of this land rest in peace," she said bowing her head. "Well, we shall get moving then," she said as she put the old roll of film in her pack and put the new in her camera.  
  
"Where to next?"  
  
"Just up the road, to see some more castles. If we had the time, we could travel around just Great Britain alone and find all the castles that I would ever need to see, but we don't really have that pleasure."  
  
With a sigh, "Cora, would you mind playing your Celtic music again?" he asked, smiling at her.  
  
"Sure, glad you asked," she said going back to her pack to get the CD out and her player. As the music played, Piccolo smiled softly as he looked around the land.  
  
They walked on and on, admiring the land, and it's creatures that passed them by. The trek across was easy by far, the sound of rushing waterfalls and rivers could be heard everywhere, but one waterfall caught Cora's eye the best.  
  
Piccolo stopped and looked up towards where Cora looked, her eyes going wide with wonder. "You want to climb up there?"  
  
"You bet, or at least try and get close to the waterfall. I love waterfalls and when I see one that is worthy of me, I shall climb it and be among it's beauty, for I am Pisces and must be close to the waters of Earth," she said her eyes sparkling with happiness as she ran up the hill to see where she could go from there. The music had heightened her eagerness greatly and this made Piccolo worry just a bit for her safety. She did not know how to fly like him, and she was a bit clumsy, but when it came right down to it, Cora was like a child, a fairy child in the forest and Piccolo could sense this strongly from her, like smelling a rose up close.  
  
He looked back behind him and around, no one was in sight, but how could this be, there should at least be some people watching. "Be careful Cora," he called out catching up with her quickly.  
  
She sat atop the hill and smiled at the great waterfall. "I must climb it, or at least be below its white flowing liquid hair of the maiden of Scotland."  
  
"Then I shall join you," he said looking up at the waterfall.  
  
"You are welcome to join me at any time that I feel I must be around my element of life," she said standing up, the wind blowing her cloak, the wind feeling a bit cold. "Here I am a child, a child of the fae, here and anywhere else of the United Kingdom I am home," she said running down the hill, heading for the bottom of the waterfall.  
  
She looked up at the waterfall and hung her head, "What is it?" Piccolo asked.  
  
"A great Earthly structure that has said no to me to climb. It be too much, but here," she said pointing. "There be a stone I can sit at," she said walking carefully to the large bolder, she climbed it with great gentleness and sat in the center of it. The water misting over her body a bit, making her hair a bit damp.  
  
Piccolo looked up and found himself a place to sit and meditate with her among the waterfall. Cora covered her head with the hood and sat calmly and began, Piccolo doing the same, even with that camping pack on his back, it didn't bother him at all, he then covered his face and began. They both sat at their places, feeling at peace, as the sound of the waterfall did not seem as loud as it was before, it seeming to put them deeper into the state of trueness. After some great hours of meditating by the waterfall, Cora began to get tired, her legs aching a bit as she came out of her state of meditation. She turned to Piccolo and smiled and quietly got off the bolder she sat on and walked back down the waterfall to a dry place to wait for Piccolo to awaken from his state of meditation.  
  
Piccolo opened his eyes and looked across from him finding the bolder empty, he looked down and saw Cora looking up at him, taking a picture of him still sitting there on the rock.  
  
"I think we should get going now, it's getting late in the day," she yelled as Piccolo stood up and flew down to her.  
  
"You're right, we should keep moving," he replied as they got back on the path.  
  
Walking a bit southwest, Cora and Piccolo came across three more old castles and Cora of course took pictures of them and of the waterfalls she found. After a long time of walking, Piccolo stopped suddenly, looking out over Loch Ness.  
  
"What is it?" she asked looking in the direction he was looking.  
  
"Look right over there," he pointed as Cora looked hard. They weren't sure what they saw, but it got them both to wondering and curious. Piccolo and Cora calmly walked down to the shore the best they could to get a better look. "There, what is that?"  
  
Cora looked harder and then her eyes widened. "Oh my God!" she cried softly, a long necked creature came out of the water and looked straight at them both, its skin black; slick and long, the water slightly splashing up against it.  
  
"Is that Nessy?" Piccolo asked keeping his eyes on the creature, he then took off his hood to see it better and for it to see him better.  
  
"Yes, that's Nessy all right and she's alive," Cora said as Piccolo flew down over the water. "Piccolo, no, don't bother Nessy, she might swim away."  
  
"Will you shut up and take some pictures," Piccolo growled softly. Cora quickly took the pictures of Nessy, making sure that her camera wasn't taking pictures of Piccolo once she would get them developed. "I'm not going to hurt the creature," he added as he flew across the water getting closer to Nessy.  
  
The creature looked at Piccolo in wonder and fear, like it could sense his power of what he could do, but with all of that, the prehistoric creature swam a bit closer to Piccolo as well. Both soon found it to be just enough of space to check the other out in safety, as they kept their distance. Cora could only stand there on the rocky shore watching this whole thing unfold and to keep an eye out for anyone that may come by.  
  
Suddenly, the lights of a boat came into view, Piccolo looked up and took off for the shore quickly, as he grabbed Cora in his arms and flew for the dirt road. He quickly put his hood back on, seeing Nessy swim away to safety.  
  
"That was close, too close if you ask me," Cora said as Piccolo put her back on her feet. "At least we both got to see her and I got some great pictures, I think the best ever in the world since that 1950's first time photo of Nessy."  
  
"Nessy's a dinosaur," Piccolo said in disbelief.  
  
"Yeah, what did you think she was?"  
  
"After living around some really dumb dinosaurs on Chikyuu, I've never meet one quit like Nessy before. And from what I can tell, she's no threat to anyone."  
  
"Of course, she can't leave the loch really and she's supposedly the only living dinosaur on the planet still to this day. They say there's a dinosaur deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest and I believe it."  
  
"What happens if she's caught and kept in a tank or something?"  
  
"Trust me, that will never happen. There are so many caves under that dark; deep cold water that no one will ever find her. No one even really wants to, cause they think she's not real, but the selected few really do believe, and as you can see, we both saw her and she's as real as they come, about as real as you right at this very moment," she added, Piccolo nodding as they got back to their trek across Scotland.  
  
"By the way, when is this festival we are going to?" Piccolo asked as he took a drink from his canteen.  
  
"It starts the day after tomorrow and we have to at least get there before then so we can get our special passes and for me to get dressed up in the right costume I want. But when we get there to the festival, you'll love it or at least have some fun," she replied. "The festival is always held in Dublin, Ireland for these parts of the United Kingdom and around the world, there are many more Medieval/Renascence festivals every year and season."  
  
Piccolo stood there for a bit just thinking, Cora watching as she could feel his mind turning with every thought. "I think the best way to get there, such you say you need to get there right away, is to fly."  
  
"But what about all the people that will see us? Wouldn't it be safer to fly at night?" Cora asked.  
  
"I'll just fly up high enough were they can't see us," he replied. With a sigh Cora went along with it, Piccolo carrying her again, he took off quickly to the air, way above were no one could see them from land. "You said you had to get there quickly and it would be the best thing to do."  
  
"Yeah, but I thought we could enjoy Scotland some more, but oh well," she said as she held tightly onto him. He stopped suddenly in mid air, way up high in the sky for a moment.  
  
"We could turn back you know."  
  
"Let's keep going then, Scotland is a bit boring anyway," she smirked, as she then kept her mouth shut.  
  
It didn't take them long at all to reach the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland. From the air, they could see already, out in a large green grassed field, the festival being fixed up with rides, jousting arena, food market like area, shopping booths, archery contest arena complete with the royal booths and high council with many different colored flags and banners up in the air.  
  
"Looks like they went all out this year," she said, as Piccolo landed.  
  
"So, what am I going to do while you're at the festival?" he asked, hoping he would be by himself for the time instead of hanging around with Cora all the time, like a dog on a leash.  
  
"Sorry to bust your bubble, but I'd feel safer if you stayed with me. I don't want to take any chances, but then again, you might be lucky enough to walk around without wearing your vale. Hey, there could be a contest for dressing up like someone of the faery realms," she said smiling, picturing him walking around normally.  
  
"Alright, if you insist."  
  
"Now, I'm going into town to find the right maiden dress, you stay here and I will be right back. I hope it won't take long."  
  
"Don't you already have something like that?"  
  
"If you mean this of what I'm wearing right now, this will not do, but I could wear it for other things," she replied as Piccolo took off the camping pack and Cora got into it to find her wallet. "Now, I won't be long, okay," Piccolo nodding as he sat beneath a tree keeping himself hidden from view of anyone passing by.  
  
Cora made her way through the bit of woods into Dublin, there she found everyone bustling around like it was already Christmas. Everyone in the city was so busy getting Christmas present shopping done and on top of that the Winter Medieval Festival was fast approaching.  
  
"Where might I find the nearest dress shop?" she asked a man that was walking her way.  
  
"Just up the road a bit, about three blocks on your left, miss," the man replied with an Irish accent.  
  
"Thank you," she said as she walked swiftly down the street to the store. She soon found it, and with her amazing luck there were maybe three more dresses left in the store that were for sale for the festival. She walked in with a big smile on her face.  
  
"May I help you, madam?" a woman clerk asked as she stopped what she was working on and attended to Cora.  
  
"I'm in need of a Medieval dress for the festival and if those are the only three you have left and they need to be tailored, that is fine with me."  
  
"You are correct, those are our last three and they are at 75% off today," the woman added as they both walked to the three dresses on the wall.  
  
The first one, nearest to the window was solid black, with royal purple trim, a straight sleeved design, with a very large ribbon tied around the chest and waist. The next one to that, was on a deep rusty wheat orange, with three layers of sleeves to it, a bit short to the elbow, with a bit of a diamond design and tied deep orange ribbon around the bust and chest. The third one was the best she could find, with such luck. It was of deep royal purple, with tiny diamond designs all over it, tapered three layered long sleeves, with a deep royal blue ribbon tied around the bust and waist, the neckline being cut a square. After a few minutes of deciding, Cora finally chose.  
  
"Which one will it be, madam?" the clerk asked.  
  
"I'll buy the purple one," she said finally, her eyes sparkling. 'I can't wait until Piccolo sees me in this and for one thing we'll match together with his gi outfit, it is purple after all," she thought as the clerk took the dress down from the wall. Cora quickly tried the dress on and found it to be two sizes too big, but that didn't bother her one bit.  
  
"Looks like we'll have to size it, I'll start on this right away for you, madam," the clerk said as she began to take Cora's measurements and went to work on the dress. A few hours later the dress was ready and looked perfect to Cora's eyes. She paid for it and was on her way back to see Piccolo who was waiting for her in the forest.  
  
Piccolo opened one eye, to see Cora walking up behind him. "I was wondering when you would finally come back," he said as he stood up.  
  
"I found the perfect dress, and it was one of three that were left," she said holding the dress up to her body for him to see. "Just you wait until you see me in it tomorrow."  
  
"It is a nice fabric, but you know good and well you can't keep this with you during the trip."  
  
"I know, I'll have to mail it to my house in New York," she added as she folded the dress up in her arms. "Now we need to find a hotel for the next two weeks and that may be hard to do."  
  
"Another dang hotel?" Piccolo growled.  
  
"Okay then, where do we stay for the night?"  
  
"There's plenty of places were we could go out in the forest."  
  
"Uh, I really don't think so, Piccolo. I don't know if you haven't noticed yet, but in Ireland there isn't very many trees here. We have to have another hotel, sorry."  
  
"Alright, fine," he growled as he put his hood and vale over his head and face and covered up the rest of his body with the cloak.  
  
"We might not get a good hotel this time around, because most of the good ones are all booked up because of the festival, but we can try and find a cancellation," she said as they walked into the city.  
  
Being around a city with so many people made Piccolo a bit uneasy. He felt a bit paranoid and aware more so than usual. It was like he was having a panic attack or something and Cora could sense it right off his body. She could even hear him breathing heavier than normal whenever he walked and that made her worry for him. She knew very well that there would be times that they would have to be out in public and they both wouldn't be able to help it at all and to make matters worse with Piccolo, he could just blow something up or even have such a panic attack that he might have to go home early and/or take some medication about his attacks. Of course there would be no telling how medication would react to his kind of body chemistry. She had never seen anything like it to happen to Piccolo, yeah he didn't care too much to hang around big groups, but even then with just Vigeta, Bulma, Krillin, 18, Trunks, Goten, Gohan, Gokou, Videl and Chichi, that wasn't very much of a large group anyway. But she figured that from him being out on his own so much that he never really experienced being around a lot of people and she hoped that he would learn to handle that better and more often as they traveled.  
  
As they walked to hotel to hotel and motel to motel, still nothing to cancellation could be found. Until the usually strange stroke of luck that seemed to always follow them, a manager from a fairly fancy hotel happen to come up with a cancellation.  
  
"You know," she began saying as she leaned up against a green marble pillar. "This is getting to be just a bit too much for my own well-being it seems," she said waving the hotel key in front of Piccolo's valed face.  
  
"Well, you do have a lot of money you can get into. I hope very well you don't carry mostly cash with you," he whispered to her as they got into the elevator. "I hate these things," he added as the elevator started up.  
  
"Nay, I don't always carry cash with me, but if I do it's not much and I carry it in the form of the wonders of plastic cards," she said grinning like a wild cat from ear to ear.  
  
"Plastic cards?"  
  
"I'll show you when we get to our room."  
  
"And for Kami's sake, please don't be another honeymoon suit."  
  
"What! You didn't care for that room we had in Russia?"  
  
"Not really, the only good thing was the hot tub in the bathroom."  
  
"Well, there you go, you did like it after all," she added as the elevator bell went off and the doors opened. "Okay, now we have to find room 432," she said stepping out of the elevator and Piccolo following behind. She looked down the hall to her left and Piccolo just stood there looking at one door, grinning to himself. He turned to see her walking down the hall a bit.  
  
"Wouldn't it be down this way," he said pointing to her right, she turned and walked down it, while he stood right in front of the room door, hiding the numbers.  
  
"Aw, gezz, it has to be here somewhere, I know this is the right floor," she said facing Piccolo, his arms just crossed and a light smile could be seen from his mouth.  
  
"I honestly don't know where the room is, maybe it's one of those rooms that they don't have a number for," he chuckled.  
  
Cora glared at him and pushed him out of the way and there in front of her was room 432 in gold numbers on the door. "I'll deal with you later, you baka," she snarled as she turned the key and opened the door. As she entered she could hear Piccolo laughing a bit quietly to himself, she turned and looked at him and closed the door right on his face.  
  
"Hey, what the hell was the for?"  
  
"That was for your stupid little joke. Just for your childishness, you'll stay out there for a while until I call you," she said looking through the door's peephole, seeing Piccolo's eyes glaring.  
  
Banging on the door hard, "Hey, let me in damn it!" he yelled as he turned to his left to see a few people stepping out of their rooms staring at him of how loud he was yelling.  
  
"Not until you say you're sorry for what you did to me."  
  
Piccolo just looked around him, he could feel the blood rushing to his face to change it to a blush. "Okay, I'm sorry, really sorry for what I did, now may I come in now?"  
  
"I guess so," she said opening the door, Piccolo ran inside, locking the door behind him. "Gezz, what's wrong with you?"  
  
"Just some friendly hotel neighbors wanting to know what was going on," he said pulling off his cloak and dropping that and the camping pack and Cora's staff on the floor.  
  
"Well, that should teach you not to trick me like that again."  
  
'Not until next time,' he said to himself, smirking a bit.  
  
"I mean it, Piccolo, these little pranks and jokes will get me very angry if you're not careful," she said as she laid down on her back on the bed, as he turned off the lights in the room, leaving the bathroom light on and the door barely open.  
  
He looked at her with eyes of contentment and stood in front of her. She opened her eyes and lightly smiled at him as he slowly laid down on the bed beside her. She rolled over to face him and cuddled up against his chest as he put an arm around her shoulders.  
  
Sighing softly, "Where do we go from here, on how we feel about each other?" she asked.  
  
"I really don't know, but the only thing I can tell you is, I want to take it slow with you," he replied as a sudden rumble was heard coming from Cora's stomach. "What the hell was that?"  
  
"I'm hungrier than I thought and this time I think I'll go down stairs to the hotel's café, were you won't be hearing me chow down so loudly."  
  
"That's fine with me, just when you come back, don't be so loud when you come in through the door."  
  
"Sure, no problem," she replied as she took the room key and walked out the door.  
  
A few hours later Cora came back to the room, with some leftovers and two special passes for the festival the next day. She slowly turned the key and opened the door, there in a corner she saw Piccolo meditating, his arms crossed, his body levitating. She quietly walked in and set the food on the table and locked the door. She then got her close changed into her sleep ware and curled up into bed.  
  
From all of the movement, Piccolo opened one eye and smiled softly to himself as he got up. He walked over to the side Cora was sleeping on and kissed her gently on the cheek, then went back to meditating the night away in the corner as she slept. 


	7. First Day at the Festival

"Ones Quest, Another's Journey"  
  
Part 7:  
  
"First Day At the Festival"  
  
  
  
Cora had awakened again on her own and was down stairs eating a big breakfast at the hotel's café, while Piccolo was getting dressed in his dark clothed attire and was waiting for her to return. She returned a few hours later, her stomach groaning a bit as she walked back to the room. Piccolo could easily hear her groan as he knew that sound far too well, it was the sound of upset stomach and did that bug him like crazy the most. He got up and opened the door for her and helped her to the bed to lay down.  
  
"Why did you have to go and do that for now?" Piccolo protested as he sat back down at the table.  
  
"I was hungry and well, I'm not trying to eat more than a Saiya-jin and you know that, but I don't know why I've been eating like this," she replied as she slowly turned on her side.  
  
"I hope you can fit in that dress you bought yesterday."  
  
"I will after my stomach calms down and when it does I'll just do some laps on a track to burn as much off as I can, but for now, I'm going to rest," she said, after that came the loudest and worst belch ever heard by Piccolo's ears, he looked up at her with eyes of surprise and disgust. "Excuse me, sorry about that."  
  
"Do you think it would be wise for me to go out and see what's going on about the festival?" Piccolo asked as he fixed his hood and vale.  
  
"Sure, if you want and see if you can buy a good mask, so you don't have to use that vale the whole time here at the festival," she said as she rolled over, groaning as she did, to get her wallet, she handed him about $300 dollars. "You don't need to exchange the American money for British pounds, but you can if you want. There should be some money exchange places on the grounds of the festival."  
  
"Okay, whatever you say, Cora, and I'll be back in a few hours to check on you," he said.  
  
"Oh, wait, I got the special passes for us, don't forget these," she added as she threw his pass to him. "Wear it around your neck and never take it off and don't loose it," she said as he put the pass strap around his neck and took one of the hotel room keys with him, he walked out the door closing it slowly, so not to wake Cora.  
  
Piccolo quickly made his way out of the hotel building and onto the streets of Dublin. A man walking by him stopped dead in his tracks at what Piccolo was dressed in, he soon smiled at him.  
  
"If you are looking for the Medieval festival, just take this main street to your right and keep going, soon you'll find a sign that says were to go for the festival, it won't take you long," the man said.  
  
"Thank you very much," Piccolo replied as he made his way to the festival.  
  
It wasn't long until he found a very large open field in front of him, a sign over his head saying, Medieval Festival this way. He followed, seeing before him many, many tents in all kinds of colors, flags flying high and proud, jousting arena, archery arena, games and pony rides for the little kids, some Irish dancers practicing outside the grounds on a stage and many more wonderful things lay out before his very eyes.  
  
He walked up to the gate, a man wearing a royal guards outfit stood next to it. "Tickets or passes please?" the man asked, Piccolo showing the pass to him, as the guard scanned it into a machine. "Enjoy your time and you won't be needing to have it rescanned," he said putting a red sticker on the plastic pass. "the sticker tells others that you are already scanned in," he said as Piccolo nodded and walked passed the gate into the festival grounds.  
  
The sun was shinning down on the ground brightly, as a few people started coming onto the grounds for the fun of the Medieval life style and magic of it all. At every turn, there were storytellers, jesters juggling balls and playing magic tricks for the kids, painters making portraits for people on canvas, and there was plenty of merchants to sell their goods and plenty of food to go around. Everyone, almost everyone was in costume for the festival and anything and everything that could be worn at the festival was made in the most perfect detail to the style and time period of the Middle Ages or Renascence period.  
  
Soon, he caught his eye on some masks and headed quickly over to the table were there where displayed. "Are you looking for one in particular?" a woman asked.  
  
"I'll just look for now, I'm waiting for a lady friend of mine to get here and I think she could choose better than I can," he said to the woman with a light smile from behind the vale.  
  
"All right then, if you find anything you like just tell me," the woman said as she went to the other side of another table and began to straighten it.  
  
Piccolo's ears twitched as he could hear way out in the distance, a few miles away, the sound of galloping horses, their hooves carrying their riders, they must have been wearing heavy attire. He turned and looked out in front of him a young boy running and yelling.  
  
"They're coming, make way, make way for the king," the boy cried out running past everyone, as all the people quickly moved out of the way.  
  
Many mounted horses came galloping down the main dirt path, all of them wearing Medieval guard attire, their horses wearing heavy metal sheeted plates on their bodies to protect them and from the very front of this group of riders, the king approached. His steed being solid white, it too wearing metal on it's body to protect it, the royal man wore deep red, with lions on his chest, the crown on his head gold and full of gems, and a red dragon flew proudly on his flag as he rode swiftly past everyone, but he looked back at Piccolo and nodded to him.  
  
"You've been noticed by the King, you are so lucky," the merchant woman said from her booth.  
  
"Who is this King?"  
  
"Of course he isn't a real king, everyone here is just role playing for fun. Here we do our very best to portray the wondrous times of this gone by era. You must be new to this kind of fun, but don't worry, you will learn quickly of what is around you and when you're lady friend gets here, she should be able to explain things better to you than I."  
  
He nodded and went on his way looking about him of the festival some more. He quickly came upon two men atop a large log beam, with staffs in hand ready for a battle. He took his place around the crowd and watched as the men tried their best to keep standing. These two men were quit well build, muscles bulging everywhere and sweat dripping from them. Suddenly one of the men quickly smacked his staff into the other guy's jaw. "Unfair!" the crowed called out as the men took another try this time, staffs hitting against each other with great cracking sounds and the whooshing sounds of the air around the swift movements. Then it got faster, with every blow, until one man finally fell down to the mud below. The one that won the match stood proud and called out and just as he did, the looser came up and grabbed him and pulled him to the mud, both men wrestling to the ground a bit, they soon stopped and laughed at one another of how messy they looked and got up. The winner was awarded his prize of a very large pitcher of ale to drink all to himself. He dove his head in and drank a great amount, he came up for air and belched loudly, everyone laughed and cheered for the man.  
  
'Disgusting,' he said to himself as he made his way from the crowd.  
  
After a while of looking at just about everything around him of the festival, he sat at a bench and waited, he could feel that Cora was coming to the festival soon, so he had no need to go see her again at the hotel room. He looked towards the main gate and there in the purple velvet Medieval dress was Cora, she caught eye of him and ran to him, holding her dress up a bit off the dirt and mud. He got up to greet her, and just as he did, she showed him what she bought.  
  
"I saw the masks right there and I had to get this one for you," she said, holding up a slightly feathered mask, its colors being dark blue, dark green, and black. "Put it on," she said as he very nervously took off his vale. "Look over there," she said pointing behind him. "There be fae here, more the merrier, says I." And sure enough there were people dressed up as fairies and elves of all kinds. "You will be safe here, trust me," she said with a sparkling kind of smile. He sighed and took off the hood; he then took the mask and put it on. "It looks really good on you, it matches your attire well, my lord."  
  
"So, what shall you show me, that you may know more of than I?" Piccolo said in the best way he could of an Irish accent.  
  
"I've kept you waiting way too long, have I?"  
  
"No, not really."  
  
"Well, then, lets see what other kinds of treasures we can find here," she said as she put her arm around his. She looked around a bit, as they walked, her eyes feeling quit large to the site of everything at once coming into view. "Well, you can't very well, test your strength here, they would really freak, you know." Piccolo nodding in reply as he watched a very large muscled man walk up to the mallet and slamming it to the button. The bell rang loudly as the ball hit it, the bell almost about to fall right off the top.  
  
"For a human, that was pretty good, I'd have to say," Piccolo commented, Cora smiling up at him. "Tell, me how was your work out?"  
  
"It was fine, boring to say the least. Everyone must have been here at the festival," she said to him, suddenly she caught her eyes on some Irish dancers up on a stage. She smiled big, from ear to ear as she heard the wonderful and very familiar pounding stepped rhythm of the dancers from River Dance that she had seen a few years back on TV.  
  
"Go on and watch them, I'll catch up with you soon," Piccolo said as he saw her smile, it lighting up his heart from inside, but on the outside he tried to hide his caring love for her, sometimes when he felt he needed to. Cora ran to the stage and found a dry spot to stand and watch the dancers, the show had just started and it was good timing for her, that's for sure.  
  
The sound of pounding; hard black soled shoes on the hard wood floor of the stage excited Cora's heart, causing her heart rate to sore quit high. Her ears rang with the sound of the rhythm as it exploded inside her gullet and all around her body. She felt so alive at that moment that she swore that it was better than a roller coaster than anything in the world. She tapped her feet to the beat as it got louder and louder, the music playing beautifully all around her and everyone else that watched with awe and amazement of the dancer's talents. Piccolo soon found the beat of the rhythm inviting and so interesting, after all, he had never seen some many wonderful things on such a simple and tiny seeming planet.  
  
Once the first song ended, almost as soon as it had started, things calmed down and Cora's heart finally relaxed, but not as soon as it had, she sensed Piccolo very near. She turned around, seeing him in the furthest back row of spectators, his very tall form making it very easy for her to find him. She smiled at him lightly and motioned for him to come over, he nodded and walked over. She looked up at him like a child looking at her father, as the music played, fiddles playing perfectly as the drums began.  
  
"Oh, hell! I can't help it!" Cora exclaimed as she started to dance around Piccolo, hiking up her dress a bit above her ankles. Piccolo watched her with confusion as she continued to dance wildly around him, she then moved away and danced a bit away from him. Everyone around began to cheer and clap as Cora danced and other young girls and women danced with her, all of them soon forming one large circle and taking hands, dancing in and out of the circle. Piccolo stepped back as the circle of human females grew to almost forty females all in costume and some not in costume. As the fiddles played faster and faster the circle spun faster, until the music suddenly stopped and all the females fell to the ground laughing.  
  
Shaking his head and smiling slightly at the amusement that had just passed, he walked over to Cora and helped her up onto her feet. He brushed the wet grass and mud off of her dress the best he could, as other men came to rescue their fallen women and young female children that the dance had flung to the earth. Piccolo held Cora in his arms, she felt weak from dancing so hard and just about wasn't able to walk.  
  
"You always seem to find some amazing ways to come into my arms, don't you?" Piccolo smirked with a light chuckle.  
  
"Yes, I guess I do at times, but it's all in fun," she said weakly, dreamly looking up at him.  
  
"Okay, for the rest of the day, no more dancing and if you disobey me on this, we will not go to the festival for three days and be stuck in the hotel," Piccolo added with a stern look at her.  
  
Gulping hard, "Okay, whatever you say, but we don't have to always be in the hotel, we could get a picnic together and just sit in a grassy field and talk and such," just as she finished saying that, the drums picked up again and she couldn't help it once more.  
  
She slinked out of Piccolo wrapped arms around her and with a giggle like a young child she ran towards the end of the festival. Finding a gate she opened it and bolted onto the grassy field, laughing as she ran, feeling the wind upon her face. Piccolo growled as he ran after her, soon he found himself running just a bit too fast and slowed down to a normal 'mortal's' pace, so not to surprise anyone.  
  
"Cora, come back here!" he yelled as he jumped over the fence with ease. 'I can't fly after her, there are just too many people around.' Piccolo said to himself, growling a bit with the disappointment of wanting to fly but not dare allowing himself to do it.  
  
Soon, he found himself close to the edge of a forest, he stopped, barely being hard of breath, he saw Cora run into the forest, moving branches of trees out of her way.  
  
"Why must you do this to me, girl!" Piccolo said, his voice slightly echoing through the forest trees.  
  
Cora stopped for a moment and heard his voice; she smiled like a gitty child and continued to run, almost in a skipping form. She jumped over fallen trees and slightly deep holes in the ground as she ran through the semi thick forest. Piccolo was fairly close behind, he was soon so close and safe away from the festival crowd, he finally was able to fly after her. He zigged and zagged in between the trees with ease as he came closer and closer to catching her. Just as he reached out for her, to grab her shoulder, he hit a tree; hitting it so hard he broke it in two. He lay on the ground slightly groaning, but as he drifted off to darkness, he could still hear Cora running through the forest and laughing as she did. He tried to look up at her from where she had run off to, but only saw a bright blue hazy form instead of Cora and then he went out cold. His body lay on the slightly damp forest floor, still as stone; the small forest animals moved about him like he was another fallen tree. 


	8. Met By Moonlight

"Ones Quest, Another's Journey"  
  
Part 8:  
  
"Met By Moonlight"  
  
  
  
The night air was cool and crisp all around his body; he awoke to find himself surrounded by the sound of children singing out a chant up in the trees. He slowly got up, finding that his pain was gone with a quickness, unlike what he had thought his pain and injury would have been like after he hit that very big tree. Finding this out, he quickly stood up, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, his pupils and iris' of his eyes widening a bit more than normal to see around him. Once he got his barring, he started to walk away from where he had lay, but when he looked back, the tree he had broken over was no longer there.  
  
"I could have sworn that tree would have still been there," he said out loud, from that came tiny giggles up in the trees and tiny flashes of light could be seen in between the branches, flickering off and on, but these couldn't be fireflies at this time of year. He dismissed what he saw and walked onward. "Cora! Where are you!" he called out, silence befell his large ears. He called her name out once more and again nothing, he could hear nothing, not even the sound of twigs and branches being broken even by the smallest of four legged forest creatures. He looked upwards, seeing a patch of the night sky above him, the stars twinkling brightly, but suddenly they all moved away in many directions. He blinked and wiped his face and looked up again, the stars he had seen before were now changed in a different pattern. A puzzled look came over his face as he kept on walking onward.  
  
After a good bit of walking, trying to leave the forest her self, Cora finally stopped and got her barring back. She didn't know where she was in the forest and she couldn't find the path she had taken before when she ran into the forest away from Piccolo. To her eyes sight, it was still in the form of the afternoon, the sun shinning bright, but just as she wiped her eyes and blinked a few times, the afternoon day quickly turned to night.  
  
"What the hell is going on here?" she asked herself out loud, soon after she heard some tiny giggles from the trees above her. 'Oh great! Just great! I hope Piccolo can figure this out on his own and doesn't wander off too far,' she thought, making sure that who ever was doing this to them didn't hear her inner thoughts. She looked around a bit and sat back down on a stump, not moving one inch away from where she was now.  
  
A good hour passed from what she could tell and she just couldn't stand it anymore, she knew she had to find a way out of this fairy magic, this fairy realm they had both run into. She got up and began to walk cautiously through the forest, finding that she was smart to see what was 'really' in front of her. She let her eyes glaze over like she was in a trance, but still was able to give the 'fairies' a trick of her own for them to worry about, she made them think she was lost. But in reality of it, she was trying to find her way by the magic and ability of her third eye's sight. In front of her she saw an opening to a swamp, a good ways away in the distance she saw a hazy form in black walking towards the swamp from the other side. She kept her eyes glazed over and kept walking, until she was right at the water's edge. She blinked, and there in front of her she saw Piccolo looking for her, but she wasn't able to hear his calls, she could only read his lips calling her name.  
  
"Piccolo, I'm right here!" she yelled, waving her arms to get his attention, but nothing could be seen from him nor heard. "Great, this isn't good, we have to get out of this realm or we will be dead by morning, or at least by the next few days." She sat herself down on a tree stump and kept her eyes on Piccolo, when he walked away she would walk after him.  
  
"Where is that girl?" he said, and just then as he started to walk onwards around the swamp to the other side, something fell from the trees behind him. Piccolo quickly turned around to find something he had never seen before. Its fairly thin body, about maybe four feet in height, slowly stood up before him. Very long pointed ears and child like small nose and large eyes of bright blue, hair short cut curly locks of brown atop of its head, its fingers long and delicate to the slightest of touches. It wore nothing more than a loan cloth around its waist and atop its head was a reef of twigs and sticks, holly leaves and berries.  
  
"What are you?" he asked.  
  
"Fairy, fae and met by moonlight, come with thee to thy fairy circle," the small being said to him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Come with thee, it be the time of winter solstice, dance with thee to thy fairy circle."  
  
"Are you a child?"  
  
The young being took Piccolo by the hand this time and tried to pull him forward to follow, but with no avail, Piccolo stood still and didn't move an inch.  
  
"Come with thee, merry met and be free, dance with thee tonight!" the being said with bit of a stronger voice, but still sounded like a child.  
  
"No, I do not have time for childish games and dances. Leave me be!" Piccolo cried, trying to leave the being's grip behind from his hand.  
  
"Sing the song of life and fun, sing with me this night," the being said as he let go of Piccolo's hand and began to dance around him.  
  
Near by, "No, Piccolo, don't pay attention to that fairy! He'll take you into the realm of the fae forever and you will never be able to get out!" she yelled, but with hardly a chance of success.  
  
"Watch the crystal white moon light up the sky, and be one with the Earth."  
  
Piccolo suddenly became dizzy and fell to his knees, almost throwing up with such dizziness. He groaned a bit as he tried to look in front of him, he wiped his eyes and looked forward. There he saw Cora, a hazy; misty like form of her, she was yelling at him, calling out to him about something from the other side of the swamp, but he couldn't make out what it was because he was so dizzy.  
  
The child like being continued to dance around him and chant his poem. "Faery, fae and met by moonlight, come with thee to thy fairy circle this very brisk winter's night."  
  
Cora continued to yell and this time used hand signals for Piccolo to understand. He got the message once she put her hands over her ears and shook her head. He slowly got up, slightly stumbling to the ground, as he looked at the creature and stopped it from dancing, by placing his hand on its shoulder.  
  
The fairy looked up at him with wonder and enchantment, "You come with thee this night, to thy fairy circle?"  
  
"No, but you can go some place else!" he said with a growl. He then put his hand over the fairy's stomach and blasted it clear away a good deal of feet.  
  
Once that was over, Piccolo turned around to see Cora and walked to the other side of the swamp, there they finally met, but both in hazy, misty forms of magic. Cora smiled, but then quickly gave Piccolo some hand signals for what he had to do next. He nodded his head for understanding her and started to concentrate hard on what was needed of him.  
  
His body began to glow in a bright shade of green, so bright in fact that the fairy that had finally woke up from the blast, he had to shade his eyes from the brightness. He hissed as the bright color overwhelmed him and he disappeared into the night, slightly squealing as he disappeared. Piccolo opened his eyes and soon he saw the opening of the portal back into the real world. He jumped through it, right into the arms of Cora; they both fell to the forest floor, into a bunch of soft forest ferns.  
  
"What happened to us?" he asked slowly getting up off the ground and helping Cora up.  
  
"You and I were in two separate fairy realms. We weren't actually fully in their kingdom realm, but at the out skirts of it and even that is dangerous itself," she explained, but quickly hushed herself and listened to the forest around her for a moment.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"We aren't out of the woods yet. There's something more to this than meets the eye and you better stay close to me, because I know more than you do, especially about the world of the fae."  
  
"Should we stay here or keep walking?" he asked, his ears slightly twitching every few seconds in different directions almost like a deer's ears, but not as much as you may think. His ears were twitching so much simply because he was trying to find what he could hear in the woods, but found it too eerily quiet, even for a Namek it spooked him.  
  
"Keep walking, but slowly as to make them think things and I know how to get out of this," she replied as she went back to her glazed over eyes look. "I hope," she said under her breath, Piccolo got wind of this to his ears and hoped the same thing.  
  
"So, that's what I saw on the other side," he added as he remembered what the fairy looked like.  
  
"What you saw was an elf, a season elf of winter. They are mostly harmless, unless they want to have some trickster fun with humans and that goes for all beings of the fairy realms. They love to have fun and you must be something they have never dealt with before and they wanted to keep you," she said as she walked onward. "Keep your hand on my shoulder so I know you are still there with me," Piccolo put his hand on her shoulder, his grip on her was quit tight and it hurt her just a bit. "Are you afraid of this forest?"  
  
A bit of a long pause then he spoke, "I don't say this often, but well, I am actually a bit afraid of this place. The power I felt from that elf was quit strong and I've never seen anything like that before or even felt anything like that before."  
  
"Their magic or I should say in your case, their energy powers come from Earth and they deal with the nature side of this planet all the time. They are the spirits, some of them great spirits of this planet that in many ways protect it just like Dende, but in a stronger and more powerful way."  
  
"I understand," he added. "So, how do we get out of this?"  
  
"I can't tell you, even by the mind I can't, because they might figure us out and find other ways to take us away. It's just a safety precaution and I'm not taking any chances, sorry Piccolo."  
  
They both kept quiet, so quiet in fact that they both slowed their breathing, were hopefully no fae could hear them coming. Even the steps they took across the forest floor were silenced a good bit, like two cats walking on their hind legs, their feet padded well to keep quiet.  
  
Suddenly, Piccolo stopped, making Cora get jerked back a bit when he had stopped walking. She turned around, seeing Piccolo's ears twitch up and down a bit as he had his eyes closed trying to listen around him. She kept still as he listened hard, his eyes clutched tight when he tried his hardest to listen. She lightly tapped him on the arm, he slightly opened on eye and shook his head, he could hear nothing for the rest of the time, but he swore he did a few seconds ago. Cora knelt down on the ground and put her ear to the ground, she backed away in a gasp from what she heard. She stood up quickly and with all her strength she threw Piccolo over her body to the other side just in time for the ground to give way to a hole from where Piccolo had stood. He hit the ground kind of hard, but was able to control most of his fall with one hand holding him up a bit above the ground. Cora quickly turned around to him and put her finger to her lips for him to be quiet, he blinked and both of them kept still for what it seemed forever.  
  
Cora turned back around to see the hole and out came from its darkness and coldness, three slightly puggy men, holding picks and shovels in their hands and over their shoulders. They wore brown pants, long sleeved shirts, and black boots, they all had fairly long beards, white as snow and their eyes were blue as the sky. Cora kept her hold on Piccolo's hand as the three little men, which stood maybe three feet tall, walked past them, their expressions on their faces were of disappointment and disgust. Once they left, a very good ways away from the two travelers, Cora finally let out a long sigh of relief.  
  
Standing up, "What were those kinds of fae?" Piccolo asked as he brushed off the dirt from his hand.  
  
"Those were dwarfs. That kind, if I'm correct on this, they are the ones that seem to cause all the sink holes around these parts. Some of them that I have seen pictures of live in Germany, they have animal like feet and sometimes have tails. All dwarfs are miners of the richest materials that come from the Earth, which are precious gems, gold and silver. Their mines are well protected from ancient spells and no one seems to be able to find these mines, no matter how hard a person may try."  
  
"But are these dwarfs dangerous?" he asked looking around him for anything else to come up after him.  
  
"Yes, all faes of the fairy realms are dangerous most of the time. The only danger they do have to humans is that if you get caught in their fairy realms, mostly caused by standing in a fairy ring, you will be forever lost in the out skirts of their kingdoms. For our case, I think we could be able to get out, but I'm not too sure of that right now."  
  
Once again, they kept walking onwards, deeper it seemed to them into the forest. It seemed that this one forest would go on forever and it was just a bit too much for Cora, who had to get out of it no matter what the cast of this trip.  
  
Soon, they came across the sound of children giggling up in the trees, both of them stopped quickly and looked up, there they saw many sparkling lights dancing off and on in between the branches and leaves. The colors were of many different shades of blue and white, some bright and some lightly dimmed. As they looked, one of the blue lights came fluttering down to them and landed right on the tip of Piccolo's nose. The blue light dimmed to a nice glow and the tiny figure was finally able to be seen completely.  
  
The tiny little thing that stood on Piccolo's nose was no more than the size of half an inch, its tiny wings were almost too clear to notice. It wore a blue dress that seemed to be made out of snow and ice, its dress sparkling like a tiny star. The hair that could be seen from her head was kind of long and blue-white and her eyes were of light blue diamonds. The tiny female being fluttered over to his antenna, touching it lightly with her tiny fingers, Piccolo slightly flinching from the light touch.  
  
"What is that one called?" Piccolo whispered.  
  
"It's a snow pixie, I think. She almost could be called a winged fairy, but she's too small for that," Cora explained as she looked at the tiny fae closer. "Yes, that is a snow pixie, also called a winter pixie, they are the ones that ride on the snowflakes, which bring down the snow to the Earth."  
  
"What is she doing now?" he asked as the little pixie fluttered over to one of his ears, touching it as she moved around.  
  
"She's curious about you. I think all the fae here are wondering what you are and they want to know more. But if we are lucky, we could get to meet some other faes that are very special and high in rank of the Earth itself," she whispered as she quickly caught eye of something fluttering over closer to them, this fae being much bigger than the winter pixie and it made Cora smile big to see it.  
  
This fae flew slowly and daintily over to the two travelers as she tried to find a place to land. Piccolo put out his hand and the fae landed there on the center of his palm. Her height was about three inches tall, she wore a long slender white dress, her hair light brown and wavy, eyes blue as the sky, and her wings were the look of a clear butterfly's wings, but not so large as to overwhelm the fae's beauty. The fae bowed before Piccolo in pure grace and trust of who and what she was to him, he smiled to her as she came into eye contact with the green guy.  
  
"This must be a fairy," he said to Cora, the fae hearing this smiled at him, her eyes sparkling.  
  
The fairy looked up, seeing that one of her subjects was still fluttering around Piccolo's ear, she snapped her fingers, the winter pixie hearing this quickly flew down to the fairy and bowed her head.  
  
"It's okay, she just wanted to know more about Piccolo," Cora said, the fairy nodding and the pixie going back up into the trees. "Are you Tatiana, Queen of the Fairies?" The fairy nodded happily with a smile back to her.  
  
The Fairy Queen tapped Piccolo's hand with her foot, that causing her to control the movement of his hand to move up closer to his face for her to look at him and he to look at her closer. She smiled at him, seeing his eyes finally, even with all the fairy and pixie light, it wasn't bright enough for her to see his true green skinned color. She looked up and waved her hand, causing the night clouds to move away from the full moon that lay above their heads. Once the moon came into view it brightened up the forest and Cora and Piccolo greatly and there the Fairy Queen finally saw the color of what he was born with. She backed away a bit in surprise, Piccolo smiling down on her with gentleness. She moved up closer to him, coming eye to eye with him and touching the tip of his nose gently with her small hand and fingers. She then closed her eyes and Piccolo closed his too for her to know all she needed to know about what and who he was.  
  
A few minutes had passed and they opened their eyes again, smiling to one another of what they now knew of each other. Cora stood there in wonder and child like amazement as to what she just witnessed, it being the most wonderful thing to ever happen to the fae realms of this modern time period and the last time this had ever happened must have been when the faes learned of humans.  
  
The Fairy Queen Tatiana fluttered up in the air, Piccolo now able to get the control over his hand and arm again. She smiled to them both as she flew away, the winter pixies following her close behind as they all flew off into the night back deep into the forest.  
  
Piccolo looked up at the faes once more and then smiled down at Cora. "What I have seen and heard of these creatures is something to remember forever. I shall not tell the truth to my friends about them, but she granted me to tell you what I now know and that won't be much, because you already know everything you have told me of these faes so far."  
  
"She is a wise and great fairy of the Realm of the Fae. It sure was nice to have seen her, but I wonder what happened to Oberon, King of the Fairies?"  
  
"She told me that he did not wish to see a being like myself, he felt over powered in some way and it made her disgusted of him for a time. So she came to see us and for good reason, she seems to be more lenient on things than what Oberon would have done. But I give him my respect and honor as to any great being of any world."  
  
"Well said, Piccolo, well said. But tell me, how do we get out of here?" just as soon as she said that, two small men dressed in green tailored suits came walking up in front of them. Their hair slightly wavy red; orange as fire, their height being about two feet tall, and both of them smoking pipes, but not in the regular way of being upright.  
  
"Before ye says a word, lassie, we be leprechauns and we are here, by the Fairy Queen's word to take you safely out of the forest and the out skirts of our kingdom. And my name be Peter O'sharin and this is my good friend, Brian Lenahe."  
  
"Nice to meet you both this fine evening," Cora said the two leprechauns smiling and nodding.  
  
"Well, if you wish to stay here any longer we can arrange for that, so lets be on our way now," Brian said.  
  
They quickly made their ways through the forest and out away from the out skirts of the fae kingdoms. As they got closer to the edge of the forest, a great big field lay before them a few feet ahead, the sun began to rose over a hill in the distance.  
  
"Tell me, how long have we been out there in the forest?" Cora asked.  
  
"You have been in the forest for quit some time I'm afraid," Peter began. "If I've been told correctly, you two have been here for three weeks."  
  
Piccolo and Cora stopped dead in their tracks and stared at each other, mouths gapping open with shock all over their faces.  
  
"Nani?" Piccolo said with shock in his voice.  
  
"Aye, lad, it's true. Both of you have been in the forest for three weeks straight. Every thirty minutes you are there is a day gone by and it all adds up to, twenty hours I believe," Brain replied with a smirk on his face.  
  
The two leprechauns hid behind a tree as the sun rose up higher. "You both better be on your way now, before the portal closes or you will be here again and this time maybe forever," both of them said at the same time. With that said, Cora and Piccolo ran as fast as they could onto the grassy field, once they were far enough away they looked back, seeing an eerie darkness over take the forest a little bit, but then the sun over powered it, shinning its golden light into the darkness of the woods.  
  
Piccolo and Cora looked at each other with wide eyes and sighed, falling to the grass flat on their backs.  
  
"Fairy, fae and met by moonlight," they both said in unison, they looked at each other and laughed, both not caring that the Medieval festival was gone to them in a flash of no longer being there at the bottom of the hill.  
  
They both just lay there for a while, watching the sunrise over the Irish mountains. They both kept quiet and to themselves, knowing what they had experienced was something they would never ever forget for the rest of their lives. 


End file.
